Washington, DC artist Joan Danziger grew up in Queens, NY. As a child she felt a strong attraction to the visual arts. Acknowledging Joan’s early talent, her parents sent her to Parson’s School of Art and Design in Manhattan, yes, at age eleven: I was always doing art. When I was about eleven I used to take the train, at that time an eleven year old could take the train to Manhattan safely, and go to Parson’s School of Design for figure drawing on Saturdays, and then I went to Provincetown in the summer for watercolor camp. I used to go to museums a lot and look at art, I was very young and I was fascinated by the surrealists, Dali, Tanguy, Peter Blume. Although no one else in her family was interested in art, Joan’s parents remained very supportive of her creative pursuits.

Untitled, Peter Blume, American, b.1906, d.1992

Joan continued her art education as a teenager, graduating with a degree in painting from Cornell University. By 1969, her interest in sculpture peaked and soon she was building large scale painted forms that continue to dominate the scope of her work today.

I visited Joan at her studio and was greeted by this sculpture on the porch. Here is the upper portion of this 12′ figure:

We made our way to the back of the house to continue our visit in Joan’s soaring studio.

Art work was everywhere -  finished and in progress.

Animals and trees have always been important in Joan’s art: I love the versatility of animals. I like giraffes for their colors and patterns. I like horses for their beautiful movement, I like rhinoceroses because of their horns and the lines on their faces. Now in my garden there’s this magical band, a drummer, a french horn player and a banjo player. The project recalls an installation in the rotunda of Washington, DC’s Corcoran Gallery of Art in 1970, when Joan exhibited five large scale musicians. This time the figures are made for the outdoors and it is clear how delightful this is to both visitors and especially to the artist herself.

Joan Danziger in her studio, March 2011, Washington, DC