ARTIST'S STATEMENT

I paint because it is who I am.  It is what I do and it is what I know best.  I have been making visual images since I can remember.  My parents kept drawings from the time I was two.  I remember that it was my favorite pastime.  I wasn’t interested in dolls, I liked pastels!  I loved all the colors.  One of the first stories my mom told to me was when I was five and the teacher exclaimed to her that I “sure knew my colors”.  I had support from family and friends who encouraged me to work in the field of art and to continue to express myself through the medium of painting and drawing.  You will be happy and successful if you do what you do best and that is what I have done throughout my life.  I am a mother, wife, educator and student and while in these various roles the one constant thread was my art.

I paint and draw things that inspire me.  I love the creative process, the puzzle, the challenge to one up myself.  I like the solitude of working alone in my studio.  I enjoy expressing myself and the challenge of doing it in different ways whether that is with a still life, landscape or figurative piece.  I hope that when a viewer looks at my work that I can inspire in them the same feelings I had when I made the painting or drawing.  In my landscapes, I tend to want to show the fleeting beauty and light that surrounds us.  In my figurative work I want to create a psychological atmosphere.  My still life paintings are really only about the objects.  They are more a study of things than anything else. 
 
My favorite tools are brushes and charcoal.  My favorite supports are hard board for oil painting and textured surfaces for pastel and charcoal.  I don’t like the give of canvas so I prefer to use a hard sub straight.  I like to sand, scrape and scrub as part of my process and I also want to make my own gesso which gives a better reflection of light than commercial gesso.  Light and color are important to me and I prefer a glow to the light. 

I love tonal painting and soft edges.  I have painted in different styles throughout my career but for now, my interests are in tune with the tonalists more than any other landscape painting style.  My heroes include Inness, Sargent, Workman, Beckman and Harper to name a few.
 
I was taught by abstract expressionists for the most part and since graduating with an MFA in painting, I have moved toward more of an expressionist attitude and even more realism.  I felt that my education lacked training in realism.  It was a much more trendy education.  What was hot and what was not seemed to drive those who were training and educating me.  I wanted more of a traditional understanding of art and so I did that for myself.  My current work is mostly landscape although I will do a still life or figurative piece from time to time.  I am enthralled with the landscape.  I have become very fond of plein air painting which I had never done until 2005.  I love the challenge of getting out there when the light is fleeting and it all feels so real and immediate.  In my opinion, it is one of the most difficult things a painter can do.  This work has helped inform my studio paintings.  However, I am not interested in projecting too much realism but more interested in the mood of the place that I am painting.  My goal is to do the best paintings I can no matter where that leads me.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Judith was born and lived in Rhode Island during her early childhood.  As a teen and adult, she has lived in Italy, Germany, Hawaii, Missouri, Arizona and has traveled extensively throughout the United States and Europe.  Her first interest in painting began when she lived in Italy among the finest art in the world.  Judith was inspired to continue her studies in art and received a BFA with Honors from the University of Hawaii and an MFA from the University of Arizona.  She has taught at the University of Arizona, Southwest Missouri State University and Pima Community College.  Judith recently retired as Director of Education at the Tucson Museum of Art and is now spending most of her time in her studio.  Judith continues to live in Tucson, Arizona.

Judith's work is in many private collections and in the corporate collections of:

•  American Telephone and Telegraph, Boston, Mass.
• Amoco Productions, Denver, Colorado
• Gates Lear Jet, Corporate Offices, Wichita, Kansas
• Robbins Company, New York, NY
• Seven-Up Corporation, St. Louis, Missouri
• Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson, Arizona
• Hilton Hotels, Arizona Hilton East, Tucson, Arizona
• Yuma Fine Art Center, Yuma, Arizona
• Hotel Congress, Tucson, Arizona
• Unicore, Springfield, Missouri
• Mid America Dairy Men Inc., Tampa, Missouri
• Valley National Bank of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona
• El Dorado Medical Center, Tucson, Arizona
• Kino Community Hospital, Tucson, Arizona
• Boatman's National Bank, Springfield, Missouri
• Murphy's Jazz Club, Springfield, Missouri
• Press Time Studio, University of Arizona
• SUAB, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona
• Kotrozo Investments Inc., Scottsdale, Arizona
• Law Offices of Kenneth J. Lincoln, Phoenix, Arizona
• Property Investments, Tucson, Arizona