"Meet the Artist" with Joan Lyons

On Thursday, October 23, we welcome Joan Lyons to “Meet the Artist” night at CPW. Lyons will be talking about her work in photography, print and artists’ books, with digressions into the evolution of Visual Studies Workshop and Visual Studies Workshop Press which were integral to her art practice. Lyons will be introduced by artist Jessica Chappe, who will be giving a summary of her residency at Visual Studies Workshop, where she researched her father’s time as a student there in the 1970s. This event will be live-streamed on CPW’s YouTube page at 6pm.

Join us every Thursday evening at CPW, when we host illuminating talks with local and visiting artists. “Meet the Artist” allows the public to get to know new work, to hear about artistic processes, and to meet friends and other local artists. The evening takes place at CPW’s gallery at 25 Dederick Street in Kingston, NY. It is free and open to the public. Coffee, tea, and snacks are served. “Meet the Artist” is made possible by a generous grant from the Arnold and Augusta Newman Foundation.

Joan Lyons has made work in a variety of media including, and often combining, silver gelatin prints, artists’ books, archaic photographic processes, pinhole photography, offset lithography, Xerography, screenprinting, photo-quiltmaking, and computer based work. She has published over 30 editions of her artist’s books and several print portfolios beginning in 1972, and is currently working with small digital editions. Joan Lyons, a retrospective exhibition, was shown at the Rochester Memorial Art Gallery in 2023. Lyons’s work is included in a many pubic collections including The George Eastman Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Harry Ransom Center. She was named Honored educator by the Society of Photographic education in 2025.

Lyons was the Founding Director of the Visual Studies Workshop Press, 1972 – 2004, responsible for its development and operation and for the publication of over 450 titles. The Press, a leading publisher and printer of artists’ books, has been active in the evolution and definition of the field over the past five decades. Lyons taught in the M.F.A. Program in Visual Studies and coordinated Artists' Programs and Residencies at VSW. She is the editor of the annotated bibliography, Artist's Books: Visual Studies Workshop Press, 1972–2008 (2009) and of Artist's Books: A Critical Anthology and Sourcebook, (1986, 1988, 1991, 1993, 1995).

Banner image: Joan Lyons.

Host or Publisher The Center for Photography at Woodstock