About
Joyce McJilton Dwyer got her BA at Michigan State University in the late 1960’s and her MA there in the early 70’s. She worked at the MSU Library in Cataloging and the Art Library for about 15 years, which she feels was a part of her art education. She started out focusing on ceramics but things evolved and her media now are watercolor painting and drawing in ink and colored pencil. Her own art work has been paired with teaching watercolor to adults in community education, senior centers and recreation departments. She has work in collections in New England, the midwest, Germany, England and Ireland.
“I grew up on a farm in the mid-west and that launched me on my love of landscape. It was visible from my upstairs bedroom window. I looked out on fields, scattered woodlots, flat, rich farm land with crops. The seasons changed and the look of the changes to the land from my 2nd floor perch stayed in my brain. It was land my family had farmed for nearly a century, so I felt attached to that land.
I can go past a familiar local scene often, but one day it really grabs me. It could be the light is different, the weather or the season really change what I am looking at. I live for those instants of beauty. I paint to capture that natural beauty and save it to remind me later of the time I saw it and it stopped me in my tracks.”
Courtesy Summer Star Wildlife Sanctuary