Joe says that he learned his characteristic impasto technique first at Woodbury College, Los Angeles, which he attended for three years after a four-year stint in the Navy. The College had a definite commercial-art leaning, and many of his instructors were from the Art Center in Pasadena. Meanwhile, Joe painted "en plein air" with a friend on weekends, up and down the Southern California coast, in places like Santa Monica, Santa Barbara and Solvang; twenty to thirty paintings a year in oil or watercolor.

As Joe says, "Let the subject decide," the artist "goes in spurts." Right now he is painting in oil - Joe still paints often en plein air, but some larger works such as Kaui Place have been done from the front of his property or from his studio, attested to by the presence of layers of paint everywhere and masterpieces hanging from the rafters.

After College, Joe worked at night and sold paintings and painted by day. He opened a Gallery with his friend and sold artwork at reasonable prices. Joe subsequently went to work for an advertising agency in Pasadena and then for Lockheed Aircraft. Later, Joe started an enterprise painting yellow stripes on the highways of California.

Joe met Kathy in California. They have three children, now grown. As he and his sons traversed the countryside, Joe looked out for likely landscape subjects. Leaving the business in the hands of others for the afternoon, Joe often retraced his steps to paint what he had discovered in the morning hours. This went on for 26 years, after which he and Kathy moved to Maui. Like most of us, they had visited for years, and knew what they wanted, in this case the half acre with a bi-coastal view and a cluster of elegant pine buildings (designed of course by Joe). Kathy has her own career as an anthropology professor at Maui Community College.

Joe soon resumed the yellow stripe business, this time for Maui County, who kept him busy for five years, until recent retirement. He striped the roads and parking lots of Maui, remarking "possible landscapes" as he went, which is why he paints "all those sweet places" in the countryside. He claims he is "always in the right place at the right time." Joe makes the frames for his paintings, appropriately from pine 2 X 4's, his own simple but elegant design. He even covers the wood liner himself with cotton yardage in white or buff. There were many wonderful works in Joe's studio and in his and Kathy's house. One title I can't forget: If the Gate's Closed, Calvin's Gone. Joe Fletcher is documenting the familiar country places of his time - places that we have learned to cherish as they become ever more fragile.