Artist statement | Works on paper | Paintings | Teaching
Hurry Slowly: Fingerpaintings by Joshua Korenblat:
June 8 — July 15, 2013
Painted from life and shown at Politics and Prose Bookstore and Coffeehouse
Graphic design and illustration branch-out across the disciplines; these forms of communication enliven when touched by writing, science, and art. Like leaves synthesizing sunlight into energy, graphic designers take universal communicative forms and colors, and vivify storytelling for readers and viewers.
Motion & interaction | Print | Graphicacy | Timeplots | Resume | PDF Portfolio
Writing is my foundation. I'm at work on a novella, an iPad children's book. an illustrated poetry book, and short stories. I call myself an idealist, defined by a need to make connections between people, places, and ideas that might otherwise seem distant. Writing also nurtures my mind; like tree rings, I'm accumulating pages, inscribing them in my timeline. Beyond creative writing, I write essays and help run a journal, ONE.
Coming soon: The Adventures of Little Shakespeare
Nonfiction | Fiction | ONE | Teaching
In Chinese classical poems, words literally grow on trees. Our alphabet also began as pictures: A for Ox, for instance. We've been writing in pictures ever since writing began.
"You are told a lot about your education, but some beautiful, sacred memory, preserved since childhood, is perhaps the best education of all."
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Brothers Karamozov
On my way to teaching my graphic design students in Georgetown, I walk through a small park flanked by ginkgo trees. Each fall, the fan-shaped leaves flutter to earth in a carpet of gold. The ginkgo tree has been around since prehistoric times, and that fan-shape is the only form of its kind amongst all of the many-varied leaves on earth. That remarkably ordinary leaf says so much: following an ancient pattern each season, from spring-green waving in blue skies to grounded gold beneath bare branches, yet still retaining its bright uniqueness, its uncanny sun-fueled charm and ephemeral spirit. Just like people.
thejoshuatree is my way of making visible all of the branches—art, design, writing— that grow from a singular curiosity about the playful mystery of life, with roots in storytelling. Consider it less of a marketing pitch and more of a visual essay. Each time I encounter a ginkgo leaf, I see it truly for the first time, unique yet part of a pattern. While I embrace the responsibilities and discernment of being in my 30s, I still take time to see the world as if it were new, observing without judging— like a child, in many ways. Stories reveal themselves only after observing them humbly.
Resume | Teaching | My visual bio
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