Joelle Steele Enterprises

Olympia, Washington

ABOUT JOELLE STEELE

This is one of several Web site businesses owned by Joelle Steele and Joelle Steele Enterprises, founded in 1983. Joelle Steele is a writer, artist, and publisher who has been selling her products and services online since 1994.

While growing up on the Central Coast of California, Joelle had many influences that impacted her art career: Her paternal step-grandfather, Leo Perrino, was a classically-trained artist from Italy who taught her about color and perspective as he walked her through a variety of museums and art galleries in San Francisco and Carmel; her mother, Norma Steele Martelli, came from rural Washington state, hailed from a long line of creative hobbyists, was a multi-talented woman with many artist friends, and encouraged Joelle in her artistic pursuits; and Joelle had received eight years of private art instruction before graduating from high school. She was constantly drawing and painting, and her work was selected and featured in several student art exhibitions in Monterey County. Joelle also began collecting art when she was a teenager -- gifts, purchases, and exchanges with her artist/friends -- including oils, watercolors, photographs, and etchings.

Joelle's tastes in art have always been extremely eclectic; she enjoys equally the works of Kandinsky, Chagall, Monet, Turner, Constable, Peter Max, Innes, Vermeer, and many others. "With art, as with music, I enjoy at least some of the works of almost every artist." But she cannot pinpoint any specific artists or art movements with which she identifies or that she feels have been direct influences on her work: "I do not like to be labeled in anything I do. I'm not an impressionist or a cubist or a fauvist or any art movement hybrid. I’m just a creative person, and I prefer to express that creativity by allowing it to flow out of me in whatever format or media feels appropriate at the time."

When she was 20 and in college, her art instructor recommended Joelle for a part-time illustrator position at an advertising agency and she worked there for two years. At 24, she began a three-year position as the creative director for a book publisher and, during that time, she had her first solo art exhibit. In addition to her fine art, Joelle pursued many creative opportunities as a freelance illustrator, designer, and art director, and delved into other art forms, including commercial photography, landscape design, and interior design/space planning. She produced a wide variety of hand-decorated clothing, accessories, and wall hangings, and provided customized individual art instruction to adults. She is also a published author and editor.