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The story of me, or at least bits of it:
My name is Joel Elliot Schoon Tanis . I live in Holland, Michigan with my
spunky wife, Kathy. She’s pretty smart (she’s a teacher), so she
is working on her PhD in Education at Michigan State University. I also live
with
my cat,
Kitty (I know you’d expect a better name coming from a creative person
but, hey, she answers to it).
I grew up here. A lot of my childhood was spent playing games outside in
the neighborhood (kick the can, bicycle races, red light green light, etc.).
Otherwise, I was inside drawing or playing with clay (my parents bought us
modeling clay instead of action figures, and we invented our own characters).
Life was pretty normal: school, church, family vacations, watching “Gilligan’s
Island” re-runs, fighting with my little sister...you get the all-American
picture.
OK, so we’ll skip talking about adolescence and just say I survived,
had a great high school career as an over-involved class goof, and headed
off to Hope College (the small liberal arts school where my dad used to teach).
I had four crazy years as an art major. Of course, half of being an art major
was dressing and acting the part, but I eventually overcame that (threw out
my black paint) and fell in love with painting.
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After a year as a gallery worker, I took the leap of faith and, for the past
dozen or more years have been a “starving artist”. I have been extremely
blessed with great adventures, shows all over the world, a few interesting
book projects, and, if you want to know more resumé type things, check out the appropriate
pages of this web site.
Most of my art has to do with seeing the world through the eyes of children.
Often it is looking at wildlife, as I love animals as much as most kids do.
Sometimes this means taking a fresh look at faith images, particularly from
the Bible. Hopefully my work helps you discover a little of this child-like
perspective.
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Although painting takes the bulk of
my time, I do have a plethora of interests (note to kids: add the word “plethora”, which means “a lot”,
to your vocabulary and people will think you are smart). I have been in different
pop bands for the last 15 years. I sing (and dance a little). I also love to
travel. My whole family has this bug, and so I have adventured to Africa, Europe,
Latin America, and the Middle East. One of the coolest trips was going to Africa
for a month and a half, taking a safari, hanging out, and doing an art show
in Nairobi to raise money for the African Fund for Endangered Wildlife. I still “draw” from
this trip for inspiration in my work. Another amazing trip was seeing my
sister get married in Bethlehem (her father-in-law is a pastor there).
Recently, a lot of my adventures have been with Young Life. I have
volunteered with YL for nine years now (YL is an outreach ministry
to high school students),
and I have helped bring groups to Honduras and the Dominican Republic,
as well as hiked my share of miles in the Rockies.
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And that pretty much covers it...any spare time I squeeze in a movie or
a good book (some favorites of the last couple of years: “My name is
Asher Lev” by Chaim Potok, “Jayber Crow” by Wedell Barry, “The
Brothers K” by David James Duncan, whatever I’ve most recently
read by C.S. Lewis, and the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling), or continue
my
life long hunt to find the truth behind all of the socks that go missing
in the laundry (I’m pretty sure it has something to do with Daylight
Savings Time).
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If you have any more questions, poke around the rest of this web site, or e-mail
me: joeltanis@yahoo.com
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