Judy Madsen Johnson

Joy Cometh in the Morning: the Joy Postle Blackstone Story Judy Madsen Johnson

Joy Postle Blackstone was best known for her vivid murals, often depicting the jubilant wading birds of Florida. When she died in 1989, the world lost a wonderful artist ? but Joy was much more than a painter. Joy?s father died when she was only three; her childhood was spent nurtured by her mother and brother, until she began her career at the Chicago Art Institute.

After graduation, her life changed, as she and her family moved to rural Idaho to live on the family homestead. There, she met her husband, Bob, and so began their three-year honeymoon, in the midst of the Great Depression. Joy painted and Bob promoted. They lived a vagabond life. They eventually settled in Florida, where Joy made friends with the birds who would make her murals legend.

Joy Cometh in the Morning traces an artist?s life from 1896 through to her death in 1989. Joy Postle Blackstone harbored the psychological scars of abortion, infidelity, childlessness, death, and the eventual limitations of advanced age; yet, as the Bible says, ?Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.? Through feast or famine, hope or despair, Joy persevered, and she did it with a smile.