JoEllen Murphy at the Plein Air Festival last month in Wayne PA, a western suburb of Philadelphia.
***
For those who have left the newspaper industry-for whatever reason-JoEllen Murphy has a Breaking News Alert! to pass on: ``There is a great life after the Post!’’
Ms. Murphy was an art director for The Washington Post for 24 years, including stints directing the Weekend and Home sections, before accepting a buyout in 2008.
The former Post staffer informs me since leaving the paper, she has met with a great deal of success as a landscape and portrait painter, winning a number of awards, including Third place in the ``Shades of Pastel’’ national show at Lorton Workhouse Art Center, Lorton, VA in 2011; and Second place in the landscape category at the ``Paint the Town’’ Art Show in Kensington, MD, also in 2011.
``There is a freshness that comes from painting directly from life,” Murphy writes on her website. “I strive to find the beauty of ordinary subjects that we pass by everyday with the vibrancy of pastels, my favorite medium.”
While still at the Post, Murphy enrolled in drawing and pastel workshops, which helped reinforce, she would later recall, ``why I wanted to be an artist.’’
Her select portraits, landscapes, and news of upcoming exhibits, can be found on her website.
Despite her newfound success, Murphy is no stranger to being showered with awards. During her extensive career with the Post, she was the recipient of awards from the Society of Newspaper Design and the Art Director’s Club of New York for both illustration and design.
Murphy received a BFA in medical illustration from the Rochester Institute of Technology, and before landing at the Post, she began her career at the Boston University School of Medicine, where she illustrated medical textbooks for four years.
She lives in Washington DC in American University Park with her husband Les and a red hound dog named Rufus.
-Bill Lucey
[email protected]
June 28, 2012
Comments