Sunset Park painter finds calm in color and nature

Although painter Jo-Ann M. Acey did not see the ocean until she was a teenager, she says that as a child living in Utica, New York, family trips to nearby rivers, lakes, and mountains left her in awe. Now living in Sunset Park, her colorful abstract expressionist work is frequently based on the natural world and features seascapes, trees and moons.

But despite her love of nature, Acey is also attuned to her surroundings. A series called Urban Stories focuses on the borough’s constant growth and development. “It’s a reaction to the change in the landscape, with one high-rise after another being built,” she told the Sunset Post.

That said, Acey is clear that her art is not overtly political. “I want my work to be about beauty and calmness,” she says. “I’ve always needed that.”

Still, when she begins a new work, she usually does not know what she wants it to look like. “New paintings take on a life of their own,” she explains. “I always incorporate lines, a whisper of a sailboat, or maybe just a sail. I also let the work talk to me, telling me to change a color or add or remove something.”

Her medium has also changed over time. In a previous studio — one she describes as well-lit and well-ventilated — she used oils. Now, however, her Gowanus studio is small and windowless, so she has shifted to Flashe, a vinyl-based paint that dries quickly. “The colors are wonderful,” she says. “My earlier work used deeper colors, not darker, just deeper. Flashe tends to be a bit softer. It’s also a very forgiving medium. I can completely cover it over or thin it out. And it works well on paper and on the wood panels that I like to use.”

Since Acey’s retirement in 2013, she has painted full time. But she did not always have this luxury, and the need for a day job led her to spend more than three decades teaching and running school-based art programs for children.

She describes the work as gratifying.

“My career as an educator began after I moved to New York in 1977 and got a job at the Henry Street Settlement House in Manhattan,” she says. “It was a position created through the federally funded Comprehensive Employment and Training Act and it paid $9,000 a year.” (The program, better known as CETA, ran from 1973 until 1982.)

At Henry Street, Acey was introduced to the Settlement House’s Arts and Living Center, where she worked in an after-school arts program. Then, two years later, she began working with Studio in a School, a program funded by Agnes Gund. “Agnes was a wealthy woman who had one of the largest collections of American art in the world. She started the Studio in a School program with her own money,” Acey says, “and hired visual artists like me to bring art into the public schools. I taught in the program for five or six years and later became the director of long-term programs. I did this for more than 16 years.”

Along the way, Acey curated exhibitions of student work in venues including the Storm King Art Center, The Brooklyn Museum and the Museum of Modern Art.

This position was followed by nearly two decades of teaching at the private United Nations International School (UNIS).

In both positions — at Studio in the Schools and at UNIS — Acey says she tried to teach her students to listen to themselves and honor their creative impulses. “Young children need to experiment with art and enjoy what they do,” she says. “In high school, I was stifled by art classes that told me I had to work in a particular way. I always tell students to stick with painting, collage, sculpture, or drawing, and find what works for them.”

It’s advice that Acey herself follows. “I’m still learning,” she says. “Sometimes things go bad and I learn from that. But no matter the outcome, I see it as a gift to be able to go into my studio five days a week and make art.”

Acey will participate in the Arts Gowanus Open Studios on Oct. 17 and 18 and will be featured in a solo show at MURAL on Main, 631 Main St., Hobart, New York, from Oct. 3 to Nov. 8. An opening reception will be held Oct. 3 from 2 to 4 p.m.