Joyce Rooks
Joyce Rooks is a mixed media artist and musician residing in Desert Hot Springs, CA.
She began playing the cello at the age of 12 performing with various youth orchestras and ensembles and taking private lessons until the age of 18 at which time her musical career took a different turn.
While unable to continue a formal music education, her informal music studies began. A child of rhythm and blues, jazz and rock & roll, as well as other musical influences, at the urging of friends she began playing jam sessions with guitars and other instruments. Along with cello, Joyce also played guitar and sang in various bands over the years. These ranged from an all-female punk rock band (The Dinettes) to ska (the Trowsers) to New Wave (the Penetrators.) With the advent of digital technology and better cello pick-ups, her cello has been electrified and treated with effects to help bring the instrument to an ever-widening range of venues. She has performed and recorded locally in San Diego, Los Angeles, across the U.S. and in Europe with artists such as David J (of Bauhaus and Love & Rockets), folk-pop chanteuse Cindy Lee Berryhill, The Beat Farmers, The Black Heart Procession, Hal Wilner’s Edgar Allen Poe Project and others.
She began playing the cello at the age of 12 performing with various youth orchestras and ensembles and taking private lessons until the age of 18 at which time her musical career took a different turn.
While unable to continue a formal music education, her informal music studies began. A child of rhythm and blues, jazz and rock & roll, as well as other musical influences, at the urging of friends she began playing jam sessions with guitars and other instruments. Along with cello, Joyce also played guitar and sang in various bands over the years. These ranged from an all-female punk rock band (The Dinettes) to ska (the Trowsers) to New Wave (the Penetrators.) With the advent of digital technology and better cello pick-ups, her cello has been electrified and treated with effects to help bring the instrument to an ever-widening range of venues. She has performed and recorded locally in San Diego, Los Angeles, across the U.S. and in Europe with artists such as David J (of Bauhaus and Love & Rockets), folk-pop chanteuse Cindy Lee Berryhill, The Beat Farmers, The Black Heart Procession, Hal Wilner’s Edgar Allen Poe Project and others.
As a visual artist she has been working primarily as a glass beadmaker and kiln worker since 1994, her background is in ceramics which she taught for many years before discovering the world of glass. She sells glass beads to jewelry designers and creates her own jewelry and kiln-fired glass for sale. Inspiration for her work is found in the beauty of nature, folk art from around the world, architecture, textiles, music and the expansive color palette that is available in glass.
joycerooks.com
joycerooks.com