TAWA at 45
The Exhibition
Joan Wood
Roadkill#1
Handspun knitted wool with deer skull, hooves, porcupine quills, 1989; 10″h x 36″w, 1989; 36″w X 10″d
Joan G. Wood was born in Massachusetts, started high school in South Jersey, finished in Maine, and graduated from Bates College in 1960.
“After stints as a public relations organizer for missionaries on sabbatical, radio copy writer, fact checker for credit reports, and a reference librarian, I started working for Anne Demarais as an intaglio-relief printer in the early ‘70s. After about 25 years, Anne shifted from the Demarais Print Studio to the Demarais Press and I started Jolly Joan’s Treats catering, which I gave up after growing to the point where I needed employees. A Trenton State College textiles course with Chuck Kumnick (who encouraged me to work with fiber) started me working with a mix of textiles and natural, found objects (skulls, porcupine needles, etc.). I began to spin and knit “bodies” for skulls. A course in fly-tying introduced me to the world of manipulating feathers. Embroidery (including found objects) sustained me on rainy days traveling the country in an old milk truck and through hours of waiting in hospital rooms as my mother’s health deteriorated in the ‘90s. I wish I had realized when I was a teenager that I was a ‘maker’ more than an English major and gone to Alfred instead of Bates. Still, it’s been an interesting road.”