The fact that Joni Mitchell, the celebrated singer, songwriter and musician, is also an artist has not escaped her fans, who have been appreciating her art on her album covers since her first release in 1968.

Some fans traveled a long way to attend the opening reception of Voices, Mitchell's retrospective at the Mendel Art Gallery Friday in Saskatoon.

"A lot of them don't even know where Saskatoon is, but they're coming," gallery director Gilles Hebert, who curated the exhibition of Mitchell's art, music and writings, said before the event.

As it happens, Mary Tyler, who was coming from the town of Lompoc, California with her husband and her sister did know where Saskatoon. She drove across Canada 20 years ago.

Now 47, Tyler was only 14 when she began to follow Mitchell's career. "I have almost all her albums and I've seen her (perform) four times," she said. "I got turned on to her by an older brother. I grew up in Detroit, and I think for a little while she performed there, with her husband, Chuck Mitchell, at a place called the Chessmate lounge.

"I saw her about a month ago at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles, on her Both Sides Now tour. There was a 70-piece orchestra and she sounded fantastic, better than I could have imagined."

Tyler, a secretary in a cardiac catheter lab at a Santa Barbara hospital, says that over the years she has eagerly awaited Mitchell's album covers as much as her musical offerings.

"I just think it's so great, that someone could sing and paint like that. I'm looking forward to studying the artwork. She is one talented woman."

Steven Goetz couldn't agree more, and he would have loved to be at the opening. But the 44-year-old waiter who lives near Sydney, Australia, couldn't afford the plane fare, about $1,00 US, to Saskatoon.

In an email interview, Goetz described himself as "Joni's biggest fan."

"She has touched me in so many ways," he said.

Goetz recalls talking with Mitchell in New York in the mid-1980s, at a restaurant where he was working.

"She had dinner with an old friend that night, and she told me he taught her how to paint," he recounted.

"They both proceeded to draw all night on the tablecloth and when it came time to leave, she apologized to the owner for ruining one of his cloths. I said, 'Don't be crazy; that's going on my wall as soon as I get home.' "

It's still on his wall, Goetz said, "and even though it isn't signed, it's worth more than anything I own."

He said he admires Mitchell's painting because, as with her music, she is constantly changing her style.

"I thank God she still puts out a project every few years and keeps getting better. She said once, "I get the urge for going, but I never seem to go." And I hope she never does."