Jo Rohrbacker

My name is Jo Rohrbacker and I am a storyteller. The easiest ways I could find a voice in my creative process were through two mediums; painting and writing. As a young child, I developed the most absurd, imaginative stories and read every single one of them out loud to my patient grandma. I found that my safe zone within the unstable environment that surrounded me during my childhood could be found through art. (My grandma filled in when art couldn’t be there). Throughout my life, all I ever wanted to do was write stories and paint. Later, into adulthood, I took that love of artistic expression and funneled it through teaching art after graduating with a BFA in the 90s. My favorite students were the beginners because they always walked into my classrooms afraid and intimidated. I wanted to introduce them to a safe, creative community where we held each other through the artistic process, offering only support and loving guidance. In my twenties, I became a mom to my two daughters who I promised to raise with as many imaginative stories I could create! They became my captive audience. Often my stories included coffee-drinking rabbits, witches who capture the moon on a fishing pole, a young girl and her coyote best friend and vegetarian zombies. Now that they are in their twenties, they still talk about the stories they grew up with and how they want to pass them on to their own children someday, if they choose the path of parenting. Until then, they are still content with me creating new stories on road trips and they send me photos of the little homemade comic strips I send to them through the mail. Presently, I am a career artist and I work in 2D media. My subjects vary with whichever medium I am working in. My watercolors are usually landscapes or animals, my current favorite subjects in acrylic are vintage neon signs and my oils and murals are a wide range of subjects. There was a short documentary made about the mural I donated to a migrant center in Sasabe, Mexico. I was so grateful for the opportunity to meet such beautiful people and that film can be seen at the following link. filmfreeway.com/BehindThePaintbrush I do not think there will ever be a time in my life when I don’t have either a notebook to jot down new story ideas, a sketchbook small enough to throw into a bag or my kit of traveling watercolors. I suppose they’ve become my security blankets. To have my artistic “crutches” available at all times allows me to embrace the consistent growth that inevitably follows an artist to their grave. I love the fact that my talent and perspective are ever changing and developing.