An Evolution from Childhood to the Golden Years

by Joelle Steele

Art has always been one of the most important things in my life. But I didn’t become an artist overnight. I had a lot of help and support from people during my earliest years.

My mother was my earliest influence. She liked to draw and she was crafty. She crocheted, sewed, and did a lot of needlework. When I was only 4 years old, we would sit at the kitchen table with a tin of watercolors and paint colors into the black-and-white cartoons in the daily newspaper. Both of my parents liked art (and photography), and we had at least 100 books on art and various artists. I spent hours looking at those books.

From the ages of 9 and 18, I took private art instruction from two Carmel artists. In elementary school there was art in every class every year. In junior high and high school I took more art classes. And my Italian step-grandfather, classically-trained artist Leo Perrino, was always there to take me through galleries and museums in San Francisco, teaching me how to look at art and appreciate it in all its forms and styles. This was when he wasn’t taking me with him when he painted en plein air. He taught me how to improve my drawings by drawing right over them, correcting my vanishing points and teaching me composition skills. Leo also taught me how to mix colors to achieve realistic ambient colors in a painting – something no one else ever taught me. By the time I was in high school, my art had been exhibited in nine student art shows, and I had begun collecting art. In college, I took only three art history classes. I dropped out of a fourth one because I didn’t feel the instructor added anything to the subject matter that I hadn’t already studied on my own.

In my mid-20s, I received further support in the form of art sales. I had two art exhibits in Burlingame where two women, who became my life-long friends, each bought a painting. So did my employer at a publishing company where I was the creative director. And so did my previous employer at an advertising agency where I was a senior illustrator. The owner of a recording studio in Sausalito bought a large oil and six photographs. My partner in a recording studio hung my art in our studio and several musicians bought pieces. While I was living with a professional violinist, three of his fellow musicians also bought some of my photographs and art.

The 1980s was a time when I wasn’t doing as much with my art as I wanted to. I was ill for a long time and lived in a small studio apartment. My focus at that time turned to writing, publishing, lecturing, and teaching. I did manage to complete a few watercolors and some fine art photography along the way. But when I participated in two art shows in the mid-1990s, I only managed to sell two watercolors and one ink drawing. It was shortly after that when I turned my attention to doing more design work, selling cover art for books, CDs, and magazines; designs for letterhead and business cards; and advertisements of all kinds.

Today, I collect art, mostly decorative European etchings (about which I wrote a book), original small paintings, and art prints. I am currently working on a short art appreciation book about how to look at art and distinguish good art from bad art and what constitutes personal taste.

Art has always been with me, and probably always will be. But it may have escaped me entirely if not for those who helped me and supported me along the way.