About Joel Moskowitz

Artist's Statement

Competition is in our faces wherever we look. The Olympics, the Oscars, the run-offs, the races. Then there's the internal dialogue we have even when we're not officially in  contests–– a streaming game in our minds, asking, who is a contender? Who is the best in the room, the most successful? Conversely, who is the worst? Who is merely average, and if you're not number one, does that mean you're a loser?

Where in the hierarchy of life do we rank ourselves? What trophy is deserved, coveted, held dear in the glass cabinet of the soul? Best actor, fastest runner, most righteous, most frugal, the one with the most stylish haircut, the biggest boat?

These ink and charcoal drawings show trophies, people wearing trophies, and some surrealist images of people who have morphed into their own trophies, their identities inseparable from their accomplishments.

Artist’s Biography

Joel grew up in Long Beach, California, one of eight children. He studied sculpture under Peter Grippe at Brandeis University where he received a BA in 1976.

He moved to Cambridge, worked in oils and later in plaster, creating fanciful sea creatures. He married Janet Buchwald, a theatre director, and in 1983 the couple and their first of two children moved to Sudbury and opened the FrameLoft and Gallery. Joel painted, mostly in watercolors, and created a series of graphic work, illustrations of Hebrew blessings, which he exhibits in Judaica galleries and promotes on his website, Hebrewblessings.com

His next artistic project was with discarded library catalog cards, combining his love of words with his love of pictures. These were exhibited in 2009 at the Gallery 1581, in Brookline. Most recently, Joel has returned to drawing the human figure in charcoal.

Joel's art has been in several juried group exhibitions, including the Cambridge Art Association's 'National Prize Show', 'Off the Wall'  at the Danforth Museum, and in the South Shore Art Center, the Brush Art Gallery, the Essex Art Center, the Ames Mansion, the b.j. spoke gallery (Huntington, N.Y.,) and the Long Beach Island Foundation of the Arts and Sciences (Loveladies, New Jersey.) 

Joel is also a poet, has had poems published in J Journal, Midstream, The Healing Muse, Naugatuck River Review, Whiskey Island Magazine, and The New Vilna Review. He is the first place winner of the Poetry Society of New Hampshire’s National Contest, November, 2008. Joel is currently writing 'The Peddler's Banquet,' a book of poems exploring themes of history through his paternal grandfather's voice and narrative.