Joanna Priestley

Joanna Priestley
Joanna Priestley in her studio in 2013, with the Movieola she used to edit her 16mm films.
Born	Portland, Oregon, United States
Nationality	American
Education	Rhode Island School of Design, University of California at Berkeley (BFA 1995), California Institute of the Arts (MFA 1985)
Known for	filmmaking, animation, teaching, Burning Man events
Spouse(s)	Paul Harrod
Website	www.primopix.com

Joanna Priestley Joanna Priestley is a contemporary film director, producer, animator and teacher. She lives and works in Portland, Oregon.

Priestley was born in Portland, Oregon to Mae Irene and Arthur James Priestley. She grew up in a wooded area near the Willamette River with horses, dogs, a cat and a huge collection of comic books. Priestley began experimenting with animation early in her life. In an interview with Harvey Deneroff she explained: “One of the first toys I was given was a zoetrope, which worked on a little turntable and had little zoetrope strips with it. I loved it! I’m sure I became an animator because of that toy. Then I started drawing on the corners of my textbooks in grade school, and later studied art in high school and college, where I specializing in painting and printmaking.”

Priestley studied painting and animation at Rhode Island School of Design and received a BFA in Art (with a minor in Art History) from the University of California at Berkeley, graduating with honors. During her final year there she produced thousands of posters used in protests against the Vietnam War and she was the Art Department representative to the Ad Hoc Committee to End the War.

Priestley received a Master of Fine Arts in Experimental Animation from the California Institute of the Arts, where she received the Louis B. Mayer Award. For two years she was the teaching assistant for famed abstract animator Jules Engel. Priestley made the first computer animated film at Cal Arts, “Jade Leaf” (1985), using the Cubicomp, early animation hardware that was purchased by Cal Arts in the fall of 1984. Priestley and Engel co-directed “Times Square” (1986), also using the Cubicomp to generate images and recording them on a 16mm Bolex camera on a tripod, positioned in front of the monitor.

In 1977, Priestley co-founded and co-directed (with Martha Kelley) Strictly Cinema in Bend, OR. They presented film festivals in Bend and weekly film screenings at Bend and Redmond High Schools. She became the Regional Coordinator, Editor of "The Animator" and Coordinator of the Northwest Film and Video Festival at the Northwest Film Center at the Portland Art Museum between 1978 and 1983. Gene Youngblood, one of the jurors of the Northwest Film and Video Festival, encouraged her to apply to Cal Arts. In 1988, Priestley founded ASIFA-Northwest with Marilyn Zornado. This ASIFA chapter included the northwest region of the United States which comprised Portland, Seattle, Vancouver B.C., and the areas in between. It is now known as ASIFA-Portland. Priestley was president of ASIFA-NW for four years.