Alabama Craft Guild

Joanne Staley has been an award winning, multi-dimensional artist for over 40 years. A first generation Hungarian-American, she counts a stone-carver, a custom milliner, two painters and a violin maker in her immediate blood line. Her personal artistry is in painting, silversmithing and fiber art. A trained artist and certified art teacher, she has captured prizes from juried art competitions in the South and purchase awards from national corporations. Joanne's undergraduate degrees are from Ohio State and Southern Illinois University, and graduate degrees from Troy State. She has studied art at a post graduate level at Savannah College of Art and Design, Penland School of Crafts and Arrowmont.

Joanne's work in oils seems a natural extension of her artist-craftsman heritage. Joanne's paintings flow from her irrepressible urge to create, a love of nature and an endemic sense of color. Like life itself, her work represents more than the surface image; you can sense "a story behind the story"....a deeper feeling than the initial attraction to a compelling burst of delicious color and delightful composition.

Joanne was an Assistant Professor at Troy State University for 17 years and is currently teaching art in the AUM continuing education program. Her art teaching background is extensive and diverse, having been an "Artist in Residence" for The Alabama State Council for the Arts and the Montgomery Arts Council.

Teaching art to individuals with special emotional, spiritual and physical needs, has stimulated the development of her resourceful, individualized, multi-media, creative teaching methods. Joanne is a unique artist/craftsman with enthusiasm, a big heart and an empathetic spirit.