Today we’d like to introduce you to Joel Schoon-Tanis.
Joel, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I’ve been a self-employed artist since 1990. After working in an art gallery for about year out of college, I made the leap into full time painting. I call the first decade of my career the Tourist Town era. I was represented in galleries around the country in cities where tourists travelled. This included Saugatuck, Charlevoix, Grand Haven and Birmingham, Michigan, Geneva, IL, and Naples, FL. My work has always explored childlike whimsy. I juxtapose drawings that look like a child made them with colorful, but more realistic versions, and often include childlike writing. In my early career the paintings were primarily watercolors and mixed media and were fun, whimsical images that largely were of animals. At this same time I dipped my toe into children’s book illustration. My first book I co-wrote called “The Dragon Pack Snack Attack” about dragons with fast food addiction (it has since been turned into a children’s musical). A highlight of my early career was an exhibit in Karen, Kenya (just outside of Nairobi) where I raised money for the African Fund for Endangered Wildlife and the Giraffe Education Centre. I lived at the Giraffe Manor for over a month and interacted with conservationists (I also spent a week in the bush with a group of Masai warriors and a herd of camels).
As the art market shifted, I entered my second decade exploring new ways to make art. I discovered the joy of collaborative art projects, which often were murals in elementary schools. I found my way to several more projects abroad (to date, I have murals in Kenya, Zambia, Mozambique, Germany, the Dominican Republic, and the West Bank…although many of those have happened more recently). In this season of art I took my biggest detour and created a children’s television show in partnership with the Grand Rapids Children’s Museum called “Come On Over!” about creative play. The show won 13 regional Emmy Awards and is still in circulation in obscure cable and digital realms. It let me work with icons like Fred Willard and Ruth Buzzy, but I found that the entertainment world was hard to navigate and didn’t let me create enough, so I turned back to painting.
In the last 15 years I shifted largely out of galleries (although not entirely), started painting entirely in acrylic, and have found my projects taking new directions. I think it comes from being an older. more established artist, but much of my work now are commissions. And most of those commissions are for institutions. These include children’s hospitals, schools, churches, and businesses (some of my favorite paintings were for New Holland Brewing). What I especially like to do is to take core beliefs of a place and enhance those through the art. I will take this same approach and create live during conferences for organizations (I’ve done a lot of work for the Lilly Foundation). Highlights in this season of life have been having my art presented to Pope Francis, painting during a gathering of church leaders in Leipzig, Germany during the 500th anniversary of the Reformation on topics of social justice, and continuing to create internationally. Also in this season I have leaned into the idea that a core function of art is that it communicates. As I considered what I wanted to communicate I decided to lean into my core beliefs. As a result, I have created a lot of work for the Church. I’ve also created my share of work that one could see as “activist” like a collaborative work during March for Our Lives, art in the West Bank while leading an art camp for Palestinian kids, and, most recently, an immersive exhibit about biodiversity and the threats to it, called “Red Alert!”, which has led me back to the environmental passions of my early days,
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
At the end of the day, being a self-employed artist is a constant hustle. I am always applying for a job. That’s not awesome. It’s especially not awesome when the economy struggles. When the Covid lock down began I was about to a) paint a huge mural in a children’s hospital (obviously didn’t happen) and b) about to take an art exhibit on tour that I had been working on for 10 months. Within 24 hours of the shut down I had months of work cancelled. I think we just recovered from that economic hit within the past year. Even when we are not in a pandemic there have been tough moments when whatever I am creating is not turning into the needed sales, or situations where clients flake out (I just had a very large mural project cancelled at the last minute). So, honestly, most of the challenges are navigating the financial realities of being an artist.
There are also day to day struggles with being self-employed. All I want to do is make stuff. I have a tattoo on my right forearm that says, “Make. Believe.” But you also have to do accounting, and marketing, and communicate with clients. That can be difficult for an Art Brain.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
My acrylic paintings explore creation and the world with a childlike wonder and whimsy. I like to juxtapose childlike images and writing with more realistic ones, or simply paint whimsical, off-kilter storybook versions of reality. People recognize my childlike images, but also the colorful, painterly approach.
I’m most proud of a few things.
First, I love transforming spaces where a lot of people interact with joyful, colorful images that promote good things. This could be a children’s hospital, business, school, or public space, but this often means that is a mural or a series of large paintings that really take over your eyes.
Second, I’m proud of my faith based images. In a time when so many of the people who have a microphone regarding Christianity make me cringe, I try to offer images that promote a “love your neighbor” faith that cares for those in need.
Finally, I am truly most proud these days of my touring exhibit, “Red Alert”, about our need for biodiversity and the threats to it. I partnered on the science with the Outdoor Discovery Center, an organization that excels in environmental education.
I think I set myself apart through whimsy. My work initially elicits smiles, but then can lead to deeper ideas.
What matters most to you?
And active faith that cares for those in need and the environment. These grow out of my core beliefs. And then, what matters most to me is creating art that shares important ideas.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.joelschoontanisgallery.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joel.schoon.tanis.art
