Joan Stark
Encyclopedia
Joan G. Stark, also known by her pseudonym
Spunk or her initials jgs, is a prolific ASCII art
ist.
Stark was first exposed to the art of ASCII in the summer of 1995 and by July 1996 had taken to the creation of ASCII art. From 1996-2003 she created several hundred works of art, most of which were posted to the Usenet newsgroup alt.ascii.art. Between 1996 and 1998 her "well-organized" website, which she updated at least once a month, received over 250,000 unique visitors. Stark's involvement in ASCII art has been taken as an example of increased online participation by women, and her imagery as an example of ASCII art becoming "softer, more stereotypically feminine."
Stark works primarily in white-on-black, but creates in color as well. Many of her works have a folk art
quality. She works free-hand, with an average of 15–20 minutes at the keyboard apiece.
Her website reports that it has not been updated since June 2001.
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
Spunk or her initials jgs, is a prolific ASCII art
ASCII art
ASCII art is a graphic design technique that uses computers for presentation and consists of pictures pieced together from the 95 printable characters defined by the ASCII Standard from 1963 and ASCII compliant character sets with proprietary extended characters...
ist.
Stark was first exposed to the art of ASCII in the summer of 1995 and by July 1996 had taken to the creation of ASCII art. From 1996-2003 she created several hundred works of art, most of which were posted to the Usenet newsgroup alt.ascii.art. Between 1996 and 1998 her "well-organized" website, which she updated at least once a month, received over 250,000 unique visitors. Stark's involvement in ASCII art has been taken as an example of increased online participation by women, and her imagery as an example of ASCII art becoming "softer, more stereotypically feminine."
Stark works primarily in white-on-black, but creates in color as well. Many of her works have a folk art
Folk art
Folk art encompasses art produced from an indigenous culture or by peasants or other laboring tradespeople. In contrast to fine art, folk art is primarily utilitarian and decorative rather than purely aesthetic....
quality. She works free-hand, with an average of 15–20 minutes at the keyboard apiece.
Her website reports that it has not been updated since June 2001.
External links
- Joan G. Stark's ASCII Art Gallery (frequently in excess of Geocities bandwidth quota)
- Copy of the gallery This appears to be a complete copy.
- The History of ASCII Art by Joan G. Stark
- How Joan G. Stark got started with ASCII art
- Tutorials by Stark