Custom bike painter and author JoAnn Bortles reports a video crew from NBCs Weekend Today Show visited her home on April 10 to shoot a segment about her and work. “Being on The Today Show is the kind of thing I could never even imagine. I was shocked when I got the email that started all this,” JoAnn said.
JoAnn owns Crazy Horse Painting and has been painting motorcycles for more than a decade. She is one of the few women bike painters in the industry. She works from a nondescript shop in her home in rural North Carolina. “They liked the fact that if you go by my place, it looks like just another anonymous house in the country. Theres no clue that an Easyriders cover bike, show winner, and a bike that most everyone in the motorcycle industry recogonizes lies just beyond the plain tan garage door,” explains JoAnn. “There are no flames on my mailbox, no signs, but go past that door and some very intense bikes are there. I had my chopper, the Sporty, and a customers 51 Panhead chopper here at the house for them to film.”
JoAnn has written four books about motorcycle painting for Motorbooks publishing. Two of them are reviewed on WRN Product News and Reviews.
No airdate has been announced yet, but JoAnn thinks it will air in the next four weeks and run about three minutes. “The whole thing was quite literally, a ride. They wanted to present me as an artist / writer / spokeswoman for women riders. I hoped I helped dispel some of the outdated stereotypes of what the public percieves as a woman rider or biker chick as women are often called. I also talked about how to the motorcycle industry is finally paying attention to the buying power of the woman rider.”