Joe Mariscal has a B.A in Art History from The Universidad de las Americas in Cholula, Puebla Mexico and a Master of Arts degree from California State University Sacramento. He retired from teaching art at San Joaquin Delta Community College in Stockton, California in 2015. Primarily known for his figurative ceramic sculpture, these collaborative portrait drawings with his granddaughter are a departure from the area of 3D.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, communication with friends and family became very difficult for Joe. They had to rely mainly on social media to keep in touch with each other. Known mainly for his clay work, he decided to fill the void and delved into drawing facial selfies of himself, (several a day) and started to include COVID-19 masks on his portraits. Family members were requested to put on a mask and take a selfie so he could draw someone other than himself.

His 18 year old granddaughter Leslie Troutman, a very talented artist in her own right, had dozens of sketch books filled with wonderful detailed colorful images of her own personal expressions. He surprised her by having some of her imagery printed on some covid masks. This naturally led to their collaboration with his black and white masked portraits to her filling the blank masks with her own colorful, detailed, precocious, and personal imagery. They are so pleased with their work together and will continue working together on larger and more extensive pieces. This will be Leslie’s first public display of her personal artwork.

Leslie Troutman is 18 and currently attends Dela Community College, from which her grandfather retired.  She hopes to spend 2 years at community college then transfer to a California college to study some facet of the field of agriculture. She is exceedingly influenced by the natural world and the connections that humans have spiritually to the earth.  Such ideas can be seen in her work.