oel Hotchkiss was born in 1949 and raised in Sherman, Connecticut. He studied Design at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY graduating in 1972. After college while working and living in Boston as an Art Director, he began making and filling his apartment with mobiles. He moved to Oakland and the San Francisco Bay Area in 1978 to “fully dedicate myself” to his newfound passion of becoming a Mobile Artist. "Creating visually unique, contemporary mobiles for over 30 years has been a passionate and rewarding journey for me artistically. I still love this intriguing sculptural art form that produces "dynamic art in air". I continuously introduce new ideas to my mobiles. I push my creative impulses to pursue innovative approaches resulting in new styles, balancing techniques and uses of materials." The early years of the 1980's in the Bay Area were very "heady" and exciting. Joel commuted daily from Oakland to a Studio called Kinetic Objects in San Rafael where he studied and learned the art of Mobile Making. It’s there he taught himself welding techniques and to work with metals, plastics and fabric applications. "I would often travel down across the Golden Gate Bridge into San Francisco and deliver my mobiles to a Gallery in Ghirardelli Square before returning home to Oakland." For over 30 years now, Joel has designed an extensive line of mobile designs sold in Galleries and Museum Stores nationwide including San Francisco MOMA and the Guggenheim Museum and the National Gallery in Washington, DC. He works with his wife Sandra and 2 Assistants at their Studio/Workshop, now located in West Stockbridge, MA where they also create larger Mobiles for residential and commercial spaces. Joel's art mobiles have been seen in movies and TV productions such as Sneakers with Robert Redford. The Tri-Lumen mobile which appeared in The Witches of Eastwick and the Ascent and Traverse mobiles which were seen in Baby Boom are others.