Maine Artist Joan Fischer on Color, Rhythm, and Joy

Today I am here with artist Joan Fischer, who is a relatively recent addition to the Portland Art Gallery, and we're so happy to have you with the gallery and happy to have you here. Thank you. Happy to be here. So Joan, I am particularly intrigued because you've balanced your roles professionally as artist and attorney, and that's not something I've heard very often. So first, talk to me about that. I didn't have a role as an artist. My identity was always my family first. So spouse, mom, daughter and who happened to be an attorney and art was my release and my joy and the quirky part of me that not a lot of people ever got to see. So there wasn't a balance. It wasn't really a part of my persona unless you knew me well. And then as I've gone on in life, that has surfaced as actually quite an important part of me. And for a while it was a balance and now the balance has tipped as I'm retired as an attorney and pursuing life as an artist. What type of attorney were you? What type of law did you practice? I started out as a commercial litigator in a big firm, and then as life changes, the beauty of a law degree is as things in life change and a medical degree as well as things in life change, you can morph within it and still be in the same profession. So I went from being a commercial litigator in a big firm to representing families of wealth in Western New Jersey in a more of a boutique firm. And then when my children came along, I just maintained a local practice and did in contract real estate, land use, municipal. I can hear in this less of the opportunity to explore that quirkiness you were describing and more the opportunity to explore. Most attorneys that I've worked with, and I've known quite a few, they tend to, they keep a pretty balanced profile. I think balanced is probably how people describe me, even if they know my quirkiness. I think we come out hardwired a certain way and I'm just a pretty even and up person. I don't have a lot on the downside. It's just not how I think. And that I hope is what comes out in my art. It's all about the color and the shape and the rhythm. And for me, as I created the joy and release I have in putting them together and frankly the hope that that will inspire those same feelings in anyone who has my art in their home or walks through the gallery, sees it, or walks through my messy studio and sees it. That's what I feel. So that's what I'm hoping to create in others. Some of the pieces that I've particularly enjoyed of yours are very brightly colored fish and they just kind of make one smile. You look at these pieces on the wall and you think, oh, that is something that feels really welcoming and it does speak to this sort of on the more joyful approach. What caused you to be drawn to fish? Thank you for saying that because that's precisely what I'm hoping to inspire in people when they see my work. Well, I have no artistic formal training. I was surrounded by art growing up. My mom was a sculptor, and I mean all of my early memories are being sort of tutored and exposed through her, but I don't have a drawing background or a compositional background and whatever I've learned about color theories because I relate to the world on the basis frankly of color. That's my primary sense and also what informs the composition of my life really. But fish, now, fish, I feel like whether you say God or the great spirit or nature, whatever you call it, there's some spirit that had a really good day and a good time when they devised fish because there's no rhyme or reason. You see these weird colors in tropical fish and then you see mud colored things in the coastal waters further north. So since I have no specific artistic drawing, talen, I figured I can't be too far wrong. I can just make it up. So that's what drew me to fish. It's purely imaginary. And you're right, as you're talking about this, the times that I've gone, for example, snorkeling down in the Caribbean that you're looking and you're seeing coral reefs and you're seeing just underwater architecture, but then every so often something bright flashes in front of you and it's a pop of color. It's a wow. There it is. And that's pretty much when I see your pieces on the wall. That's what I'm thinking. Oh, I'm glad. Thank you. So you also have an interest in actually indigenous art and architecture, and tell me about that, because they seem contrasting in a way. Again, it's the color and the shape and the simplicity rather than a true bond to drawing what's in front of you or seeing what's in front of you. If I'm in Taos and I'm at one of the maces and of course impressed by, in a very fundamental level, the longevity of the life lives that have taken place in these places, but I see different colored rectangles and I see how they're stacked, not so much from an architectural perspective, but from a color juxtaposition and a shape juxtaposition and the rhythm that it suggests to me. Same with textiles. Textiles were my first love. I mean, and I mean going back to maybe age four, when my grandmothers who were immigrants each taught me hand skills from their respective not related countries. Textiles have always been a focus for me because of the feeling, and again, the color and the shapes that you can make. And so indigenous art for me, mostly on a textile basis, so weaving those crazy Mexican spirit animals that are made up of two or three different animal parts and imaginary things put together. It's when I say indigenous art, that's more what I'm thinking of than any true delving into the history or the spiritualness of it. Tell me about your grandmothers and your mother. Your mother's a sculptor and grandmothers have this deep history of handwork. So talk to me about that. When you're an immigrant from Eastern Europe, the deep history of handwork was keeping your clothes on you and woven without tatters, not necessarily making beautiful walkout coverings, but I learned knitting and embroidery and lace making from them when I was very young and I loved it. And even then, it was a sort of meditative escape. My mother did not do any handwork. I don't think she ever threaded a needle, but she was a sculptor, a beautiful sculptor, very talented. And I think had she been born in a different time, that would've been the life she pursued rather than the domesticity of suburban New Jersey, which I think really chafed on her. So art for her was an escape from her surrounding wonderful mother. I'm not saying that what came through was that she needed to escape, but I saw that it was a release from her things that maybe she didn't enjoy that much. So just always I was going to pastel lessons and three towns over when other kids were outside playing soccer, and I was learning color theory from some lady in her backyard in Elizabeth New Jersey of all places. So I was always exposed in that respect and she was a great influence on me. What was her medium? What type of sculpture did she do? Large stonework. That's impressive for a woman of the time in Oh yeah. In high school I would come home from a date and my mother would greet us at the door and she'd be wearing a face mask and a blowtorch because she was in the metal sculpture for a while. My days were always cut very short at that point. And that was how she definitely did her own thing as a parent and as an artist. So when you were crafting your life and you had this, you had your family, you had your legal career, how did you maintain your own creativity and your own artistic passion through those years? You just do it. I mean, if it's something that you want to do badly enough, you make the time, I guess to do it. It wasn't necessarily a conscious decision. It was a help for me. So you build it in, I mean, you're a mother and now a grandmother and a physician and a media presence, you just do it. Yeah, that's fair. It is very similar to what you're describing with your grandmothers, and you need clothes, so you make them, and that's the way it goes. And it is interesting as you're talking about textiles, I'm thinking about my own grandmother. Her family came from Ireland and she knit all kinds of sweaters and they were very brightly colored. So not only was she going to keep her kids and grandchildren clothed in these sweaters, which literally lasted for decades, but also she put them out there in the world. There was nothing dull about my grandmother. So it was keep the kids warm and also imbue it with a little fun. Yeah, I strongly suspect that neither of my grandparents ever heard of that more as an artist, that just because it's functional doesn't mean it shouldn't be beautiful. But that's how, as you just described, that's what they did. If they were making something anyway, you might as well make it pretty. Yes. So other influences that you've described, Klimt, Kandinsky, Frankenthaler, Drexler. So how do those all play into your current work or work that you've done in the past? Well, it is the color and the shape. I mean, I know I keep coming back to those words. They're keywords for me. That's just what I respond to as I find my eyes drawn to that, but my mind as well. So in the legal field, if you're someone who thinks about things in color and shape in the legal field, there's a lot of words. So does that translate in any way? Was your mind always just, well, I'm over here, I'm going to focus on this and over here I'm going to focus on this? Or was there a crossover? I don't know. I really don't know. They're just both a part of me. I don't think one would exist without the other. I was always a little bit quirky as quirky is not the right word now, maybe quirky as an I in my role as an attorney. And I was also always maybe a little too grounded and conservative to truly play a role as an artist. So there's some mutual exclusions, but I just think they're both part, man. I don't think I can tease them out. Well, I ask this because I happen to have attorneys in my family and they're able to do the same thing that you're describing. I mean, the attorneys that are in my family, in addition to being, I believe they're very good at the law. They also are each of them very creative in their own ways. And one of them, for example, opened his own workshop, his wood workshop, and I don't know if there's a crossover or not, but he creates these beautiful pieces and he has this whole artistic background that he pursued before he even went to law school. So I love that your creative mind is differently creative, but they are kind of simultaneously coexisting Within words are a medium for me anyway, a medium for creation as well. Not as a writer. I mean, anything I write will definitely read as if it were a legal brief, even if it's supposed to be a poem. I just don't have that lyrical bent at all. I think like a lawyer, I mean, I was born that way I think, but I react many times as an artist. Does that make any sense? Well, give me an example. I am extremely logical and I think I always have to have a goal and I think in steps towards it, even when I'm painting fish on six foot by three foot oak planks and it is very flowing and it's very reactive for me, and I hope will cause reactions in a positive way in the viewer. I've already planned, at least in my head, I have steps, I have goals, I have a linear progression towards the end. That's what I mean about it. I don't think you can tease one out without the other. And I think I would be very bored and boring if I only had that logical approach to life for serious topics. I also like that you create your art in two very different settings. You have your Portland based studio and then also East Boothbay, and they're both very main but both very different. And I'd like you to tell me a little bit more about, first of all, your main connection, but then why these two different settings and do they do different things for you and your art? They don't do different things for me and my art. Why two different settings? A, I'm extremely restless. I don't sit still well mentally or geographically. And B, I love cities and I love to be out right on the water. It has to be salt water without a lot of extraneous noise other than the waves and the gulls. So again, I guess that's another, not competing forces, but there are two sides of me there as well. But both of the places where I create are light filled and very open and that that's a constant for me. I've basically grown up by the ocean most of my life. And the only time that I went away from the ocean, I went towards a lake. So not saltwater, but still water, still water. But even within Maine, I'm struck by one of my family members has a house up in Cundys Harbor, which is going up towards one of your necks of the woods, and it's just up the coast. And it's very different from where I live here, and it's very different from Portland. So it still does give you that geographic variability and it does give you that kind of different visual things that you can focus on, especially at different times of the year. Does that spark things for you? The changing light sparks things for me. Shapes change, colors change because I'm not a representational artist at all each of the places. In fact, every place I go provides a certain level of inspiration that will work its way somehow not just into my fish planks, but the oil pastel and watercolor work I do, again, not representational, but I seem to always be subconsciously clocking new things that I've noticed. And so I get inspiration in that regard wherever I go, even if it's the same place every day, the light is different 20 minutes later. I mean, I can relate to this. This is an interesting time of the year where I live because for a certain part of the summer, the light when the sun rises is behind the trees. And then this time of year it emerges out from behind the trees, and now it's right in front of us in the water and it shows up even in our house in a different way. So earlier in the summer, it would shine on the flowers and in the vase that's on our dining room table. And now it's kind of casting sparkles out into our living room. And so for me, I like that image And it causes me to continue to think that we're all just interacting in this very living and organic way. And the fact that you've just described acrylics and oils and pastels, I believe oil pastels. So some artists will just focus on one type of medium and they'll focus on one type of scene and they go very, very deep. And you're describing, I use this here. Maybe this appeals to me here. So does that go along with this sort of living within the shifting organic nature of the world? I think that elevates it to a cosmic level that's quite flattering. I don't really think about it that way so much. Again, I don't have training in art, so no one told me I couldn't. So I always have my materials in my studio pretty much close at hand, and if I want to color that S oil pastel and I don't have it, but I have it in my head, but I see a tube of acrylic that I could mix to look, so I'll just grab. And again, no one told me I couldn't and I didn't have to submit any kind of final project. So I just do it. Sometimes it's a real failure, sometimes it's an embarrassing failure, but it's always interesting. If nothing else, the materials I choose are many times also just dependent on how easy they are to work with. And not to be mercenary, but if it's going to cost me, if I want to do a huge piece and it's going to cost me $6,000 to frame it afterwards, I'm not going to do it. It's just the reality of life. So some things get scaled down in my head for those reasons as well, particularly textile work or work on epo, which is an extruded polymer. And it's really fun to work on that because it's anything that you put on, it sits on it. So if I use oil pastel as a sort of a resist and then watercolor deeply, deeply pigmented, watercolor, and they make shapes and you can shift them and let them dry, that's a really fun thing to do and that you can get huge sheets of it. But then what do you do with it afterwards? So what I choose to work with is somewhat limited by realities, but my goodness, there's so much available now. It's just vast. You walk into Artis and grab someone. It's like going to a candy store. I love what you're talking about, this idea that nobody told you you couldn't partially because you didn't ask. There is that. Yeah. But it enables you to see or somehow visualize where did you like to go and then look around you and say, how do I get there with the materials that I have? I think that art for some people doesn't feel that approachable. They feel like I am either an artist or I'm not an artist. If I didn't get formal artist training, then I am not an artist. I have that. But you were absorbing art training from very early years, and some people didn't even have that. So color theory was something that, for example, I didn't even know it was a thing until maybe 15 years ago. And now I've looked into Joseph Bert and some of the Masters of Color theory, but it's a whole different world. And I think some people feel like if I don't understand this world, then I can't dabble in it. And I love that, that maybe you have imposter syndrome, maybe you don't. I'm not sure. I guess I'll ask you this. Do you have imposter syndrome? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, every time I was at the gallery last night for one of your incredibly enjoyable openings, Thursday night gatherings and was given the art, the little name tag, to mark me as an artist. And I still wonder, should I really put this on? Is this real? Is this make believe? I don't know if you have the same reaction to things having gone through all of your medical training and medical school credentials are important. And how can I be an artist when I have no credentials? Who anointed me an artist? I didn't graduate at the top of my art school class. So how can this be real? I struggle with that and I'm never going to get over it. So I just kind of put it aside. And when I'm feeling particularly insecure, it comes out big time, but most of the time it's just there. So I don't know what you call it, but that's for me anyway, that's real. I question, why am I doing this? I'm not trained in it. I'm not accomplishing anything. And then I think, well, I do have a goal, and the goal is to spur joy in anyone who has the art in their home. So then it takes on some meaning. I was at this, the same art opening you were at last night, and we have these very accomplished artists. And it truly was a group of very accomplished, wonderful artists who are so well-spoken, and they've spent years and decades on their work and varying levels of training. Some have training and some don't have training. But my observation with really anybody that I've spoken with in that artist group, it's never a sense that I know things. You don't know things, so you stay over there. You're not an artist. I'm an artist. And even amongst the people in this group, the sense I've always had with these individuals is it's come along, come over here. Talk to me about art. Talk to me about your experience. So I would hope that that is a feeling that most people would experience, but is it something that you found yourself experiencing? Is this more of a welcome into that? Oh my goodness, absolutely. Again, it's partially the light. The light and the windows and the care with which each piece is home. I think it's a magical space. It feels like a secure space and a comforting space. Very friendly, always. I have never been there on a Thursday night or most times without someone recognizing me from a different aspect of my life. I go, Joan, what are you? Oh my God, you're an artist here. I thought you were an attorney. Or I thought you were a fundraiser. I thought you were a police committee. Whatever former lives, there are always people there with connections. And to some degree, that's just true because it's Maine. But it's also true because it seems to be a space where people with similar desires and interests congregate. And it is very welcoming. It's welcoming. And I always go home with a lot of stories and inspiration. Well, I had almost forgotten about this police commissioner idea, but I kind of love it and really want to hear a little bit more about this now. Well, first of all, picture Mayberry not, my first case was trespass with intent to fish. And I am not kidding you. That was oddly appropriate. Yes. Oh yes, absolutely. Yeah. No, it was a very small rural town in western New Jersey, and I was a councilman in the town, which I guess up here we'd be a commissioner. And I was the only woman, and I was the first woman, second woman, beg your pardon. But she had been gone a long time, and the mayor and I didn't always see eye to eye, and he thought he was going to teach me real good. So as a councilman, you have a liaison to a different aspect of the town. And so he thought it was a great idea to put me on road crew and police department figured that'd teach me a lesson. Well, of course, that was exactly where I belonged in both cases. But I truly enjoyed being the police commissioner because it's so small and so rural, and you could make, again, such an impact on the community where my children were growing up. Well, I liked it so much. I was elected to that position year after year after year after year. And that was, again, the law degree was how I got there, but that's not why I was able to stay. And so I think that again, that, I mean, you referenced it earlier that the law, like medicine, it is such a credentialed field. It's all about, it's where you get your degree. I mean, certainly if you're a lawyer, you're a lawyer, if you're a doctor, you're a doctor. But people still pay attention to where you got your degree, what your specialty is, what your credentials are in medicine, it's what insurance company you're affiliated with. And there's a lot of regulation in both sides, law and medicine. And so the thing that I, as a writer, I don't have writer credentials. And I think I actually did have pushback When I attempted to be a writer and an editor, which I was, and I am still a writer, and I was always kind of surprised by that. But then I sort of understood like, well, that's fantastic that there's such pride in that field. It's very understandable that people work very hard for those credentials. Also, I felt so privileged that this is my opening. I'm going to come in as somebody who has some level of writerly skills. I love that you took this opening to be the police commissioner. Like, okay, small town, I'm ready. Instead of saying, oh, I could never possibly do that. You're like, no, let's see where this goes. It's also, if he knew me, we would have realized it was very consistent with my personality to, I would not have been a good liaison to the school board, for example. That would not have worked just because I had kids in the school, and my opinions would always have been molded by that, I think. But this was a good position for me, and I think it made a real Difference. So I do think that there's, it just kind of the theme that comes back to that this conversation keeps coming back to from me is having educational knowledge is very good in many ways, and also creating openings and space for different types of knowledge and the utilization of different types of knowledge for different things, creating art, being in leadership roles, being in community-based leadership liaison roles. I think these things are all very important. Well, they certainly are. To me, I'm at a stage in life where luckily at a stage in life where I always wondered if looking back on my life or when other people look at my life looking back, they think, man, she is some flake. She just travels too much and doesn't stay committed to a particular field too much. What's the unifying theme here in this person's life? And when I look back now, the theme has changed for me and learning new things. And if that doesn't mean becoming a Supreme Court judge, which by the way, at one point in my life, I had aspired to way back. I mean, other kids wanted to be Willie Mays. I wanted to be a Supreme Court judge. I was always a weird kid. But the change in learning is something that is the carrot on a stick for me in life, and that I realize is not dependent on your field. It can be, but it doesn't have to be. And the change, for me, the biggest difficulties, not just the imposter syndrome, which is most certainly there, but it's also when you're an artist, you lay your ego bare, and it's a real different feeling. If I made an argument on an appeal and lost the case, they didn't like the facts, they didn't like the way I do it, but it wasn't a reflection on whether they liked me and what was coming out of my heart and soul and mind and hands. It was, this is what I've got. I put it in, the best light didn't fly. I'll go to my next level of appeal or whatever. But it wasn't a personal reflection. I didn't take it as a personal reflection anyway with art. There's no right or wrong. No, you can't say, well, you don't like it. You have bad taste because this court said it was great, or this board of curators said it was great. So if they don't like it, they don't like you. I know that's not true, or I'm told that's not true, but I'm sorry. I can't help but feeling that it is true. And so my ego is out there with every brush stroke, and it has exposed in me a level of insecurity that I did not know I had. Sometimes it's uncomfortable, but sometimes it's nice too because again, it makes me want to learn more and move forward and maybe change something to lessen that and to make me feel more accomplished and accepted by a community that I'm now endeavoring to be part of. Well, I appreciate your offering that reflection. I think it is something that would resonate with a lot of people and this idea that as an artist or as somebody trying anything that's outside of their comfort zone, it really doesn't always feel great. And so there is some level of knowing that your ultimate goal may require that you're not always going to great as you move towards it, which is something that maybe we don't love to think about. Many of us would prefer that I'd like to get to that goal, and I just want to be there. And that going through the discomfort and going through the uncertainty and going through the questioning, whether it's putting your art on a wall, whether it's, in my case, writing a piece for a magazine or becoming an editor for a magazine as a doctor. I mean, that vulnerability, it's a very real thing. And yet, if it's where you want to go, it's kind of the process you have to go through to get there. I mean, I prefer that you didn't, I don't enjoy, I mean, wouldn't we all. There's not very many people I've met over the course of my life who are like, sure, bring on the pain And they're weird if they want that. Well, there's a spectrum of weirdness, but Sure. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Is there anything that I haven't asked you today that you were thinking about before we started this conversation that you thought you might want to bring forward to help people get to know you better as an artist? I think what I was hoping would come out, and I think your questions led me there comfortably. When I paint in whatever medium or creator build, or do I still do a lot of textile work and knitting design, pattern design, that what has not changed for me is that I personally need a product at the end. I know so many artists, friends who I think of as real artist friends, they're certainly real friends, but I meant real artist friends as opposed to, well, I'm not really an artist yet. For them, they'll say, you do it because you want to do it, not because you're making something as a product. I cannot function that way. So with, when I paint, even if it's a sketch for a painting, it's still something that I need to produce for the day. And I think that's what I wanted to come out from this interview, that this really isn't a great departure for me. It's just a different modality of getting to a goal of something that I chose to make and produce. Yeah, again, that's something that's oddly relatable from my standpoint, I would think. Yeah, And I think especially if you're in something like medicine, the law, one of these other professions where things are people, at the end of the day, you're expected to produce something. You have a patient who comes in and they're not going to be satisfied with, well, let me think on that. I'll get back to you in about a year or so. Yeah, right. There's a reason they came to see you. There's a reason that people come to see you as an attorney. And so I think that kind of that idea that something needs to come out of this, for me, it's also required a rejiggering of the way that I think about creativity, because sometimes things don't come out very. So as long as I can be like, no, I'm just going to show up. I'm going to engage in the process, and eventually I'll get there. As long as I stay with that, I'm usually good. I think you're right. There's a saying, and I should remember which book I read. It's not my sayings. I'm not appropriating it, and I'm also not giving proper accreditation for it. But if you don't know where you're going, all roads lead there. And in the business world, and certainly in the legal world, that's not good in the art world. I think it is. Going somewhere where you didn't know you were going frequently gives you the best result. So retooling old sayings that have always guided me has been an interesting process too, and I'm sure for you as well. Yes. Well, Joan, it's been a pleasure to have this conversation with you today, and I look forward to seeing you at the next Portland Art Gallery opening, which for those of you who are watching, is the first Thursday of every month. I've really enjoyed this conversation with one of our newest artists, Joan Fischer. You can see her work online or really, we appreciate you coming into the gallery and hanging out with us on our first Thursday openings and meeting our really wonderful community of artists. I've been speaking with artist Joan Fischer today. Thank you for joining our conversation today. And Joan, thank you for joining our conversation.