Joy Hecht Arts
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joyhechtarts.bsky.social
Joy Hecht Arts
@joyhechtarts.bsky.social
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joyhechtarts.bsky.social
I used the tape-masking stripe technique to make a couple of brightly colored mugs. Neither is perfect - the red, yellow, and blue one has two cracks and the blue and black one has spots in the black glaze on the handle. But they are all experiments, so it's okay!
Hand thrown stoneware mug, the interior and handle black and the exterior with four stripes in different shades of blue and blue-green alternating with unglazed stripes. Hand thrown stoneware mug, mostly in deep glossy blue, with a red stripe and a yellow stripe on the outside, and stripes of unglazed clay. This mug has two cracks that I didn't know how to repair before I glazed it. But I learned from the experience of glazing the stripes, and I still use it from time to time! Hand thrown stoneware mug, the interior and handle black and the exterior with four stripes in different shades of blue and blue-green alternating with unglazed stripes. Hand thrown stoneware mug, mostly in deep glossy blue, with a red stripe and a yellow stripe on the outside, and stripes of unglazed clay. This mug has two cracks that I didn't know how to repair before I glazed it. But I learned from the experience of glazing the stripes, and I still use it from time to time!
December 26, 2025 at 3:26 AM
joyhechtarts.bsky.social
This small pitcher was made by putting 1/4 inch tape on the bisqued piece in the pattern you see, dipping it into white and blue gray glazes, and then peeling off the tape to reveal the bare clay. This works best with matte glazes that don't run much, and with horizontal lines.
Small pottery pitcher with horizontal lines of alternating glaze and bare clay. This was made by putting 1/4 inch strips of tape on the bisqued clay, then dipping it into two different matte glazes and peeling off the tape to leave bare clay stripes. It works best with matte glazes and horizontal stripesl Small pottery pitcher with horizontal lines of alternating glaze and bare clay. This was made by putting 1/4 inch strips of tape on the bisqued clay, then dipping it into two different matte glazes and peeling off the tape to leave bare clay stripes. It works best with matte glazes and horizontal stripesl
December 25, 2025 at 6:19 AM
joyhechtarts.bsky.social
This mug was hand built, which is how it can be square on the bottom but round on top. Those who know my work might recognize the coast of Newfoundland, which is on a lot of my work. Scroll through the photos to see the tree on the handle, the seagulls inside, and the tree on the bottom.
Hand made coffee mug, square on the bottom and round at the top. All around the outside is a black line drawing of the coast of Newfoundland, full of small islands and rocky ciffs and seagulls flying overhead. The background is a light blue and gray glossy glaze. This photo shows one side of the mug. Hand made coffee mug, square on the bottom and round at the top. All around the outside is a black line drawing of the coast of Newfoundland, full of small islands and rocky ciffs and seagulls flying overhead. The background is a light blue and gray glossy glaze. This photo shows one side of the mug. Hand made coffee mug, square on the bottom and round at the top. All around the outside is a black line drawing of the coast of Newfoundland, full of small islands and rocky ciffs and seagulls flying overhead. The background is a light blue and gray glossy glaze. This photo shows a pine tree climbing up the handle from the bottom of the mug. Hand made coffee mug, square on the bottom and round at the top. All around the outside is a black line drawing of the coast of Newfoundland, full of small islands and rocky ciffs and seagulls flying overhead. The background is a light blue and gray glossy glaze. This photo shows the bottom of the mug, where two pine trees are growing on a small rock and sea gulls whirl overhead.
December 24, 2025 at 4:50 AM
joyhechtarts.bsky.social
I've been doing a lot of pottery in the past few months, in several different styles. I figured it's time to share some of it. These are hawthorn berries. I didn't pick them for the season, but they do seem rather appropriate! So happy Chanukah, everyone!
Photo of a small pottery bowl. White background with hand-painted hawthorn leaves and berries on it. Photo from the side showing the inside of the bowl. Photo of a small pottery bowl. White background with hand-painted hawthorn leaves and berries on it. Photo from the side showing the inside of the bowl. Photo of a small pottery bowl. White background with hand-painted hawthorn leaves and berries on it. Photo looking down into the bowl. Photo of a small pottery bowl. White background with hand-painted hawthorn leaves and berries on it. Photo of the bottom of the bowl.
December 23, 2025 at 2:48 PM
joyhechtarts.bsky.social
If you're not doing everything you can to push back against the Trump administration, you are part of the problem. It doesn't matter if you are discouraged, burned out, or whatever. YOU MUST FIGHT BACK. Suggestions in the comments.
Image showing the words "silence = complicity" in white on black, with a red (MAGA-type) cap with a black raised fist on it.
September 4, 2025 at 10:30 PM
joyhechtarts.bsky.social
I've been focusing my artwork on political graphics lately. What else can we do?

WE CAN PROTEST! April 5, protests nationwide. To find one near you, go to www.mobilize.us/handsoff/map/

In New York, meet at Bryant Park and march to Madison Park, 1:00 to 3:00.

Be there!
Protest graphic saying "silence = complicity" with a red MAGA-like hat with a clenched fist on it.
March 29, 2025 at 6:36 PM
joyhechtarts.bsky.social
I've been learning pottery since the fall, for no good reason. After six months the majority of my pieces at least are worth keeping! (The rest go to the thrift shop. 😂) I wish the studio had more warm-colored glazes!

#art #pottery #glaze #ceramic #newyorkartist #clay #bowls #dishes
Three pottery bowls, two shiny ones in shades of green and blue, and the other matte and in shades of dull orange. The orange one is actually the largest, though you can't tell it from the photo - and it only holds about 9 ounces. The one in front is the smallest. Three pottery bowls, all in shades of green. These were made with speckled clay, and the speckles show through. It doesn't look it, but the one in back is the largest and the one in front the smallest.
February 17, 2025 at 3:46 PM
joyhechtarts.bsky.social
I'm intrigued with weaving, but don't have a loom. So for a while I was weaving paper. I kind of like the results, though at times the process was a nuisance! See alt text for details.

#weaving #paper #paperart #art #newyorkartist #scissors #handmade #analog
Artwork made of woven paper with triangular color patterns. The final piece was coated with mod podge, which gives it a shiny finish and made the colors run a bit. Colors are red, yellow dark blue, pink, purple, green, light blue, orange, and probably others that I can't pick out. Weaving project in process. The piece was created in several steps: 1. Draw colored equilateral triangles onto two white sheets of paper of the same size. 2. Cut one piece - the "warp" - into narrow strips around 1/4 inch wide, without cutting all the way to either edge, so the whole thing holds together in one piece. 3. Cut the second piece into strips of the same width, cutting down to one edge but not the other, so it doesn't all fall apart. 4. Cut off one strip at a time from the second sheet and weave it into the first sheet, using the ruler as a reed or batten to push the strip as far up as it will go. (I think that part of a loom is called the reed or batten!) The image shows the partly completed woven piece with the ruler in place to use as a reed. On the right side of the image are the strips that will be woven into the "textile' as the weft. Another image of the work in process. I am turning the ruler 90 degrees to separate the warp strips of paper so I can easily slide the weft strip of paper between them.
February 14, 2025 at 7:22 PM
joyhechtarts.bsky.social
Spring's not that far away! A collage from a while back, but it's always nice to remember spring when they're predicting more snow.

#collage #flowers #newyorkartist #art #USK #urbansketch #brooklynbotanicalgarden #flower #spring #pansies #paper #
Paper collage done in the Bronx Botanical Garden, showing four pansy plants with purple flowers. Done at a New York Urban Sketchers gathering a while back.
February 12, 2025 at 3:07 AM
joyhechtarts.bsky.social
I was looking for something else on my computer and found this photo from last winter, the view out my window. Black & white photos can be so much more interesting than color.

#photography #NewYork #newyorkartist #Manhattan #black&white #art #bluesky.art #snow #citylife #view
Black and white photograph of New York City, looking out a window at 107th Street and Broadway in the winter. There is snow on the ground but it has melted on the streets, and they are black.
February 8, 2025 at 9:38 PM
joyhechtarts.bsky.social
Just finished! Paper #collage of the #coast - could be #Maine, #Newfoundland, or elsewhere. See alt text for more info.

#art #paperart #artist #@bsky.art #Canada #oceanart #coastal #collageart
Paper collage of a rocky coastline with a bit of beach and a stormy sky. There are birds silhouetted against the clouds, seagulls. My collages are made of all kinds of found paper, sometimes first painted with watercolor. Swipe to the other images to see some details of how this is actually made. Detail of work in process on this collage. I use all different kinds of paper - I have folders full of bits and scraps, roughly sorted by color, and I pull them out to find materials for my collages. Sometimes I cut my pieces, sometimes I tear them. So the clouds are torn, the ripples in the water are mostly torn. The hills are mostly cut, especially when you see sharp white lines in the rocks. I use a tiny very pointy scissors for cutting, and glue sticks (yes, they ARE archival!) to attach tings. I use a pointy spike to move around tiny bits of paper - one of the corks in the image is attached to the end of that spike, the other cork gets stuck to the pointy end so I can toss it in a bag when I'm carrying my tools to work on site. (But this collage was, uh, done at my dining room table, not on site!) Closer up detail of work in process. You can see the way I cut apart individual scraps of paper to create the lines in the rocks. The piece on top that's already glued down is newspaper that I colored with diluted ink - it had some kind of diagram on it, that's the straight lines and small squares. The bottom piece was from a magazine advertisement (no, I DON'T buy things at Hermès in Paris!). I cut the bits apart and lay them out carefully, hoping I'll keep track of how to fit them together again as I glue them down. Invariably I move them by accident, or sneeze and they blow around, or drop something on them, and they get unaligned, and then I go mad trying to figure out how to arrange them again. That little drawing and the letters made this pretty easy, but sometimes it's nightmarish!
February 8, 2025 at 8:50 PM
joyhechtarts.bsky.social
I'm intrigued by the circular mosaics in some Venice church floors, and started playing with creating the same patterns in cut paper, and then using the result as a stencil to paint the patterns. See alt text for lots more details!

#art #mosaic #cutpaper #stencil #blueart #mosaicmonday
Cut paper pattern inspired by ancient mosaic floors in which triangular pieces are arranged to form complex and dazzling circles. I cut triangles out of paper in circles to form a set of concentric circles. Then I used it as a stencil, painting the whole thing in shades of blue and green with another sheet of white paper behind it. The next image is the result. Cutting triangles out of paper in this pattern, I quickly realized that if I cut full triangles, the remaining bits of triangular paper wouldn't have anything to attach to. So I had to leave a bit of paper at all the points so it wouldn't fall apart. I used bits of scotch tape to reattach a few triangles, too. Learning by doing! Watercolor in blues and greens, created by using the stencil that I posted in the first image. The triangles themselves came through pretty clearly, but in lots of places the paint also ran under the stencil, so there's also less intense blue and green color around many of the triangles. To me that gives it a feeling of an ancient piece that has degraded a little bit and looks less precise and more interesting as a result. Photo of the floor of a church in Venice, showing the actual mosaics t hat inspired this work. Unfortunately, I don't know which church this is from. I found the image on pinterest, simply labeled "Venetian church floors" or some such thing. These patterns were also used in ancient mosaic floors,but I didn't find an image taken "head on" to really show the patterns well. This image isn't also directly taken head on, but the circle in the middle does show pretty clearly the way the triangles combine to form petal-like forms.
February 1, 2025 at 2:38 PM
joyhechtarts.bsky.social
Five years ago, when I was living in Newfoundland, there was a massive blizzard. We were all snowed in, driving was impossible, stores were shut. So I made a collage of the view out my window because what else to do? See alt text for details.

#collage #art #Newfoundland #snow #snowart #stjohn's
This collage shows the view out my upstairs window a few days after Snowmageddon hit St. John's, Newfoundland. We had a meter or so of snow in 24 hours. The city shut down, all the plows went to clear emergency routes to the hospitals and stuff. So we all poured outside and shoveled and shoveled and shoveled. The bronze car with the roof racks was mine (no longer have it, since I've moved back to NYC), the red one was my up-the-hill neighbor's. The two of us are there, talking next to her car, shovels in hand. I'm the one in the blue jacket - my hair was long then. In front of my car is Danny, who lives in the next house down the hill. The pickup across the street belongs to Mary, who lives in the house with the yellow door - that's her, walking behind her car. The red car belonged to a woman in the green house. She's a nurse and had to get to the hospital to work, but her car was completely buried in snow, so we all helped her dig it out. It was a good time. Crazy events like that bring out the best in all of us.
January 31, 2025 at 3:14 AM
joyhechtarts.bsky.social
I intended these monoprints to show sun and storm clouds over the ocean, but others saw them as the LA fires. Art is what you see in it, not what I had in mind. Check alt text for more thoughts.

#printing #printmaking #monoprint #Californiawildfires #smoke #fire #ocean #LAfires
Monoprint - black on bottom, dark blues on top, orange in the middle. I was aiming to depict the sun over the ocean with storm clouds, but people have seen the four prints posted here and seen the LA wildfires. So they are fires, as well. Second monoprint. The bottom is dotted black ink with some swirling patterns in it. The top is streaky black ink. In the middle are streaks of yellow and goldenrod and orange, with a few strong blobs. Perhaps this is fire and smoke? Or perhaps, as I originally intended, the ocean with a sunset and storm clouds. In this monoprint the bottom is wavy black marks, which look more like ocean to me than some of the other prints. The top is blobs and streaks of black with an area of orange and red blobs and streaks over the water and reflected in the water. Sunset over the ocean? Fire and smoke? Whatever you want it to be, that's what it is. Fourth monoprint - if you are seeing this, you may have noticed that this is the first one rotated 90 degrees. I initially conceived of it in portrait mode, but after it was finished and dry I thought perhaps it worked better in landscape mode. It's (even) more abstract this way - blue-gray and black streaks on the left, black streaks on the right, orange and red in the middle. It is what you want it to be. It can go in any orientation that feels right to you. Though I did sign and date it in landscape mode.
January 30, 2025 at 3:36 AM
joyhechtarts.bsky.social
I've been making prints for a year now. This one is of a perky wading bird I watched for a long time at a marsh at Cape May Point State Park in Cape May, NJ. Check the alt text on each photo for lots of details!

#printmaking #art #birdart #waterfowl #capemay
This is the basic print, no chine collé, just black ink showing this spunky little bird marching through the marsh in Cape May, New Jersey. I love how much character she has! She makes me happy. This the linoleum plate I used to make the prints, after I'd just printed a bird but before I cleaned it. The smudges on the right around the tail are where a bit of ink got in the wrong place, and I rubbed it off before printing. I often forget that my prints will be a mirror image of the plate, but unless there's text, that's fine! I'm using washable oil-based inks, and they take FOREVER to dry! I live in a very small Manhattan apartment, so there's no place to spread things out at all. But I discovered that my apartment door is metal, so I can attach things with magnets, and that's where I hang my prints to dry. You can see four of the yellowlegs on the door, plus three monoprints of night scenes that I made using up the leftover ink. Plus a few postcards of beautiful paintings I saw in a nearby museum, my bike handlebar, and my cane (I was having knee problems at the time, and took the cane to go outside). The bear on the left wall is a woodcut by #Newfoundland artist Graham Blair, who doesn't seem to have joined Blue Sky yet. He's an inspiration to all printmakers! And this is a photo of the yellowlegs herself, picking her way delicately through the marsh. These birds are just so much fun to watch, and she came very close to where I was standing on an overlook. Those wide toes let them stand on the grasses and mud without sinking in, I guess. And the long pointy beak lets them grab little crustaceans and fish for breakfast. Or lunch or dinner, of course!
January 28, 2025 at 10:27 PM
joyhechtarts.bsky.social
In the course of my work (as an economist), I've spent time in Beirut, a fascinating city where I made this collage. I'm active in the Lebanon urban sketchers (@usk-lebanon.bsky.social) - follow them if you have ties to Lebanon!
#collage #lebanon #urbansketchers #coastal #paperart #artist
Paper collage showing the Beirut corniche and the Mediterranean Sea with the mountains in the background. I made it out the windows of the business school at the American University in Beirut, where a friend teaches. This collage was made before the terrible explosion of 2020 - the white building on the shore in the background is the building that exploded, though.
January 28, 2025 at 3:47 AM
joyhechtarts.bsky.social
I lived in Newfoundland for 12 years, and many of my pieces, like this one, channel its rocky coastline, swirling ocean, and spinning seagulls.

#collage #Newfoundland #artist @bsky.art #canada #ocean #oceanart #coastal #paperart
Paper collage showing a rocky coastline, swirling ocean, and gulls spinning over the waves. Could be in Newfoundland (Canada), or it could be in a few other places that look similar.
January 27, 2025 at 2:14 AM
joyhechtarts.bsky.social
New York is my home town, so that's my second post. This is Morningside Park and E. 116th Street, looking east. For more detail, swipe through the photos and check the alt text.

#NewYorkCity #collageart #paperart #art #newyorkart #morningsidepark
I grew up in New York City, and it is the subject of many of my collages. This one shows 116th Street from Morningside Drive, overlooking Morningside Park. I think New York is a totally beautiful place, and this collage captures what I love about it - the texture of buildings, the rooflines and water tanks, the patterns of light and shadow, the mix of shapes and colors, the contrast of blocky buildings and soft leafy trees. I began this on site, with my papers and tools spread out on a park bench and my notebook propped on the back of the bench and the railing. But it got too hot outside, so I had to finish it at home with the A/C on. This image shows the same text you could read in the "alt text" option. Photo of my collage papers and tools spread out on a park bench, and the collage in process in a notebook propped up on the back of the bench. Photograph of the view itself - trees in the bottom, brightly lit buildings in the middle, and a kind of stormy sky above them.
January 25, 2025 at 11:30 PM
joyhechtarts.bsky.social
For my first post on Blue Sky, I'm sharing the collage that I use as my profile photo, done on site in the 13th Arrondissement in Paris in fall 2016. My style has evolved a lot since then, but it's one of my favorites, so it seemed right to begin here.

#collageart #paris #art #paperart
January 24, 2025 at 5:42 PM