Now that the tour is right around the corner Homegrown will be a daily post highlighting our Holiday Arts Tour artists. NCLAC would like to celebrate the artists living in our own backyard whether they were raised here, relocated, or just like to visit enough to call Ruston home. This years Holiday Arts Tour will be November 18, 19, & 20th. Watch here for more information and tour locations. Todays post is about Joni Dollar an artist based in Monroe, LA.
ABOUT JONI
Joni Dollar is an artist based in Monroe, Louisiana. After raising three children, being involved in numerous community
organizations and charities, and painting murals for local facilities; she decided to continue her education by enrolling in the University of Louisiana at Monroe in January 2005. Since then, she has graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts with a sculpture concentration in July 2010.
While pursuing her BFA, she received many awards and scholarships, including; ULM, College of Arts and Sciences Outstanding Award of Accomplishment; The Beverly Jean Marvin Memorial Art Award; Administrator’s Choice Award; Award of Merit; and in June 2007 was awarded a scholarship to attend the New York Studio School Summer Drawing Marathon in New York City.
As of September 2011, Joni has started her second year in the Master of Fine Arts Program at Louisiana Tech University and plans to teach on a college level and try to continue her education in Art History and Printmaking. Joni also hopes to be involved with volunteer or missionary work by helping others to communicate through art.
ARTIST STATEMENT
I feel contentment when I try to represent nature’s energy and ever-changing makeup. I combine rhythmic, flowing lines with textural implications by painting and determined mark making. I expressively recreate with suggestive forms that fill up space and are pulled by gravity to replicate the beauty of decay and growth of nature’s cycle through my investigations and observations of nature.
THE INTERVIEW
NCLAC: Who is your favorite artist and why?
DOLLAR: My favorite artist is(today) Andy Goldsworthy. His ephemeral works from of the earth, along with his photography are captivating to me. And he brings forth color and a special language with natural materials that go directly back into the earth without destroying the site.
NCLAC: What is your favorite place in the world, and why?
DOLLAR: My favorite place is the Zugspitze which is 2,962 meters (9,720) above sea level and is the highest peak of the
Wetterstein Mountains as well as the highest mountain in Germany. Below it is a little town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen and has a restaurant that had the best scope of vanilla ice-cream (made there of course) with warm raspberry sauce! Such beautiful buildings and atmosphere and on the peak of the Zugspitze there are restaurants! Magnificent! Never will forget it!
NCLAC: What’s your first memory of the arts, and/or how did you become interested in art?
DOLLAR: My first memory of the arts or how I became interested in the arts, was when I was small, maybe five years old. I had a desk 2/chalk board on the top and instead of learning my numbers and such (phone, House)( sister trying to teach me); I drew the Clowns that were part of the decoration around the chalk board. I also made little mud sculptures and loved to watch how they cracked as they dry! Also, I attended a small, elementary school and would go to the library at recess to look at the National Geographic Magazines and draw animals and natives from them. Also, there were stories of Leonardo Da Vinci and Michelangelo in the Natl. Geogr.’s and after seeing their works, I knew I would be an artist as I developed into adulthood.