Joan Stark

Joan G. Stark, also known by her pseudonym Spunk or her initials jgs, is a prolific ASCII artist.

The newsgroup alt.ascii.art has dubbed her "Queen of ASCII art".Fact|date=April 2008

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.cite book
url=http://books.google.com/books?id=T7OtU8Aw0ywC
title=Cyberpl@y: Communicating Online
author=Brenda Danet
year=2001
publisher=Berg Publishers
isbn=1-85973-424-3] 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." [cite book
url=http://books.google.com/books?id=l5eZhM8W7SUC
title=Media Anthropology
author=Eric W. Rothenbuhler
others=Mihai Coman
year=2005
publisher=Sage Publications
isbn=1412906709]

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.

[http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/7373/ Her website] reports that it has not been updated since June 2001.

References

* Freedman, Alan (2001). "Computer Desktop Encyclopedia, 9th Ed." Osborne/McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-07-219306-9.

External links

* [http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/7373/ Joan G. Stark's ASCII Art Gallery] (frequently in excess of Geocities bandwidth quota)
* [http://www.acid.org/info/mirror/jgs/history.html The History of ASCII Art] by Joan G. Stark
* [http://www.lastplace.com/ASCIIart/starkascii.htm How Joan G. Stark got started with ASCII art]
* [http://www.ludd.luth.se/~vk/pics/ascii/junkyard/techstuff/tutorials/Joan_Stark.html Tutorials by Stark]