Joan Carroll Brigham

Joan Carroll Brigham, born January 31, 1935, passed away at the age of 91 on July 18, 2026, in Vermont.

Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to John Edward Carroll and Marie Blair Carroll, Joan spent her childhood in Salina, Kansas, before her family moved to Santa Barbara, California. After studying at Pomona College, she earned a master's degree in art history at Radcliffe College, Harvard University. She married architect Richard C. Brigham Jr. at the Santa Barbara Mission in 1958, and they settled in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The couple had three children: Amy, Anna, and Benjamin Nicholas Brigham.

Joan taught studio art and art history before later joining Emerson College, where she became a Professor of Art History and taught until her retirement. In the years after her divorce, she increasingly devoted herself to her artistic practice as a fellow at MIT's Center for Advanced Visual Studies under Otto Piene. Through collaborations with numerous CAVS artists, she created innovative environmental artworks using steam, including Tanner Fountain (1985) at Harvard University and Galaxy Fountain (1990) at MIT. She later continued her independent artistic practice, creating public installations and, in her later years, numerous steam-powered kinetic glass sculptures in collaboration with master glassblower Eric Starosielski.

Joan was a skilled conversationalist who had many friends and a rich social life and enjoyed entertaining at her home in Cambridge.

She was predeceased by her sister, Gail Carroll, and is survived by her sister, Rita Dallmeyer; her three children; six grandchildren, Marina, Julian, Tristan, Emeline, Noah, and Kai; her great-grandson, Hugh; and many dear friends, students, and artistic collaborators.

Knight Funeral Home was entrusted with arrangements. Condolences may be expressed in an online guestbook found at www.knightfuneralhomes.com