Joye is equally passionate about creating art and making art.  Early in her teaching career, she left to spend seventeen years creating and showing her work in galleries on the Pacific Northwest Coast.  She returned to the classroom and spent twenty-four exciting years teaching high school art.  She set up and developed a very successful Advanced Placement Program that gave students a chance to compete with other talented artists from schools throughout the country.  In retirement, Joye enjoys teaching drawing, painting, mixed media and printmaking to adults at Trilogy/Vistancia in Peoria, AZ.

When Joye is not teaching, Joye spends time in her studio creating work for Trilogy’s Art Walks and Hidden in The Hills Studio Art Tour, sponsored by the Sonoran Art League.  She is a member of Sonoran Art League in Cave Creek, AZ and Ground Floor Artists in Surprise, AZ.  She has had work jury accepted at both galleries and at the Sedona Arts Center.  In 2013, she was a featured artist at the Schack Art Center in Everett, WA and in 2014 was jury accepted at a show at Lynnwood Washington’s Convention Center Gallery (now named The Lynn and Joye Melby Gallery). 

Joye earned her first degree in Art Education at the University of North Dakota and later earned a Master/Art Ed from Western Washington University.  She received a grant to attend the Chicago Art Institute’s ‘Teachers In Contemporary Art’ program.  She is a National Board-Certified Teacher.  Joye received many awards for her teaching including Washington Art Education’s Teacher of the Year and was honored with the WAEA Tribute Award when she retired.  

To register contact Joye Melby:  jemelby12@gmail.com

Joy is currently planning the following classes: