Joan Lyons has made work in a variety of media including, and often combining, silver gelatin prints, archaic photographic processes, pinhole photography, offset lithography, Xerography, photo-quiltmaking, and computer-based work. She has published over 30 editions of her artist’s books. Her work can be found in a score of public collections.
As Founding Director of the Visual Studies Workshop Press, (1972 – 2004) Lyons was responsible for the production and publication of 450 titles. She is the editor of Artists’ Books: A Critical Anthology and Sourcebook, (1986, ’88, ’91, ’93) and Artists’ Books: Visual Studies Workshop Press 1972 – 2008 (2009). Lyons taught in the M.F.A. Program in Visual Studies and coordinated Artists' Programs and Residencies at VSW.