"Every time I pick up the brush it's a brand new experience," Joe was fond of saying Joe had been painting and teaching art since 1959 and until his passing in 2020. "After thirty-five years devoted to watercolor landscapes I find my work keeps leaning more and more towards non-objective paintings in oils, acrylics and watercolor. My recent exhibit reflects my attempts to create a perfect balance between a minimal number of shapes. I call it aesthetic homeostasis."

Joe Mayer was an award winning artist who was affiliated with the Baltimore Watercolor Society, past-president of the Washington Watercolor Club and Annapolis Watercolor Club, as well as founder of the Friday Morning Artists in Easton, Md. and Shephersdtown, WV.

After graduating from William and Mary College with a degree in commercial art, followed by two years at the McCoy Advertising Agency in Washington, DC, Joe embarked on a career teaching art in public schools. Although printmaking was his main focus, Joe became fascinated with watercolor and studied with Skip Lawrence and Edgar Whitney. Composition, his main area of interest, led to a teaching position at Prince George's Community College where he became chairman of the Fine Arts Department in his second year. In 1980 Joe began teaching private classes in watercolor which, for the next thirty years, has allowed him to conduct workshops across the United States as well as Mexico and Europe. His continuing curiosity with composition has led him to painting in oil and acrylics as he has moved inceasingly towards non-objective painting which he refers to as  "music without lyrics".