It has been ten years since Joe Batt started teaching at SPSCC. “I knew that anyone couldn’t just get a degree and start teaching, I just found teaching jobs and kept at it.” Joe has also been a teacher’s assistant and has done sabbatical replacements for other professors. These experiences taught him that he could teach art and still do his own artwork.
Joe plans to take sabbatical leave later this year. He will be taking the fall quarter off in order to focus on his artwork. One of the pieces he is focusing on is a set of life-sized drawings of students using cell phones. The drawings are on a long white wall, and the students are underneath a satellite.
It is clear that Joe is excited to take his sabbatical, but it is equally clear that he does not want to take much of a break from teaching.
Joe sees more technology in his future artwork. He likes the idea of traditional methods of creating artwork. He is however, excited about the new tools and ways of doing things that technology brings.
Right now Joe’s style is fairly unique. He works with ceramics that are finished with colored pencil. according to Joe the process is time consuming. He prefers colored pencils to glazes because the pencils don’t take up any room on the sculpture. The sculptures Joe works on are somewhat fantasy based, but also have personal ties to Joe’s childhood.
Some of Joe’s work is available for viewing in public at the Olympia center. There are also photos of his work on the access ceramics web site ( http://accessceramics.org/results/artist/19/ ). The work on this website is mainly sculptures of a boy and a hare. The boy in the sculptures represents Joe’s childhood, or Joe as a child. The hare is mischievous trickster that represents the wild in nature.
Growing up, Joe was surrounded by role models with strong careers. Doing art or being an artist never seemed like a valid career option when compared to being a doctor, lawyer, or nurse. As a kid Joe was creative, he drew, played music, and constructed things. He didn’t however, see it as any more than a fun way to kill time.
When Joe was attending college at the University of South Dakota he was seeking a degree in anthropology. Most of his friends however, were art majors. Joe said that he lived vicariously through them, and he spent a lot of time in their studios. “I liked what I was doing, but I was much more interested in what they were doing” he recalled. A fellow student recommended he take just one art course. This single class, drawing for non-majors, would change Joe’s life. It quickly became clear art was not only an option, it was the only option. The next semester he was no longer an anthropology major, he switched his degree to fine arts.
Later Joe graduated with a bachelor of fine arts from the University of South Dakota. He continued to the University of Montana to earn a Masters of fine arts. He likens the experience to being in a pressure cooker. He was required to create a body of work, which needed to be approved and overseen by a committee. While Joe was putting together his show, he still had to keep up with core classes, and figure out where his next meal was coming from. He said that he loved the experience no matter how stressful it got.
When Joe was in college he thought that his professors had great lives. His first teaching job was at the art museum of the University of Montana. He taught students while he was seeking his MFA.
This Guy's Perspective 