About the Artist

Polly Joubert graduated from Concordia College, River Forest, Illinois, with a degree in elementary education. With that degree in hand and a few art classes under her belt, she taught art for a number of years at the grade-school level before "retiring" to raise a family. During that time, she also pursued her own creative interests, among them designing and executing needlework for a nationally known antiques dealer. Largely self-taught, she began painting occasionally as well. Initially, her paintings were done primarily as gifts, but later she began accepting commissions. In 2011, she started to paint on a regular basis and made her first foray as an exhibiting artist in 2012.

    Polly is a member of the Cedarburg Cultural Center and the Museum of Wisconsin Art. She lives and paints in Nashotah, Wisconsin.

I draw inspiration from history, old buildings, and visual details, as well as from the work of Anna Mary Robertson (“Grandma”) Moses and both Pieter Brueghel the Elder and his son. These all combine in my paintings to tell a story.

      As I travel the back roads, rolling hills, and lakeside towns of the upper Midwest, I might glimpse an old house, a farmstead, or a setting that charms me. I visualize parts or the entire scene in two dimensions, creating a backdrop for a narrative of the lives lived and events that might have played out there. Whether I am painting a scene in a historical context (as in the Door County lighthouses), working on a commission for a contemporary family and its residence, or constructing an imagined moment in an actual Midwestern setting, my initial focus is on the buildings and parts of the landscape that first captivated me. Then my focus shifts to the people, the families, and the animals that inhabited these spaces—whether in reality or in my imagination. They infuse my work with life, joy, and sometimes, dry humor. My art is richly detailed. Those details draw the viewer into my

paintings—and into the “story” I am telling. As the eye moves over my work, it discovers all the small scenes and activities that comprise the whole, much like the child’s game of “finding all the apples hidden in the picture.” It is the details that enable me to share my vision with my viewer.