Joan Alex Potter was born in 1945. She earned her BFA in printmaking and sculpture from Virginia Common Wealth University. These days she can be found in rural Hutchinson, Kansas. She loves the physicality and directness of pastels; “The process is almost alchemical. The pastels come from the ground in the form of pure pigment. Then they transmute once they get to the surface. And I get to touch them in my hand.” Potter exercises careful control to ensure command in value, in dark and light – which to her is the most important thing in painting.

 

J. Alex Potter, KA, PSA has consistently won national and regional awards for her artwork. Her pastels are included in the book, “Best of Pastels”, as well as featured in magazines that include Southwest Art, Focus Santa Fe, American Artist, The Artist’s Magazine and Pastel Artist International. She was a winner of a Mid-America Arts Alliance/National Endowment for the Arts Grant and a Kansas Arts Commission Developmental Grant, and was the subject of a MacNeill/Leher News Hour PBS television program. She holds prestigious signature memberships with Knickerbocker Artists, USA and the Pastel Society of America, and was honored as Master Pastellist by the Kansas Pastel Society.