My name is Judi, and I have been been an artist my whole life, but for most of it I wasn’t sure that I was a “real” artist.   I hadn’t even heard of an “Artist” until the ladies who sat behind us in church watched me draw pictures during the sermon and told me that I was an Artist. And I believed them, but I still wasn’t sure what that meant.

As a child I was allowed to draw on the back of my spelling tests.  All other school work required both sides of the paper. I could never “waste” a perfectly clean sheet of paper!  I copied photos of my friends’ school pictures, sometimes erasing holes in the paper trying to get it just right.

I got my first box of Crayolas on the first day of first grade!  I treasured them, loved the smell of them, and was careful not to press too hard so as not to break them.  After we finished coloring “in the lines” of the mimeographed picture the teacher gave us, I could make my own pictures on the back!

In fourth grade, I would take my lunch money and use it to secretly purchase beautiful colored inks at Woolworth, and hide them in my desk at school because I didn’t know how to use them and was afraid my parents would find out that I wasn’t eating lunch.  

On Christmas when I was in 6th grade, Santa brought me a Jon Gnagy drawing set, with pictures to copy on fancy paper, with charcoal!  And for Christmas when I was in 7th grade I got a paint-by-number set with real oil paint.  After I finished the numbered canvas board project I used the leftover oils to paint a picture of my own on a piece of corrugated cardboard.  Unfortunately the oil soaked into the cardboard and the pigments fell off on the floor.

I finally had 2 years of art in high school. The teacher encouraged us to copy photos from magazines, using pencil, pan watercolors or charcoal on typing paper!  It was the first time I got to draw on paper without those lines that are on notebook paper – and those holes on the side of the paper so it fits into the binder!  I got very good at copying pictures. Just about everyone said that I was an artist.  I even got an award certificate from the art teacher who, at the awards assembly encouraged me to “go into art education.  It’s so rewarding.”

When it was time to graduate from high school the guidance counselor asked me what I wanted to do with my life.  I was surprised he didn’t know!  “I am an Artist!” I told him.  “Your parents can’t afford to send you to art school.” he replied with a sad expression.  “You have a scholarship.  Go to state college and major in art.”  So I did.  I graduated with a major in both art and English and a minor in home economics (in case I wanted to be a fashion designer, the counselor told me.)  But before I could graduate, the Dean of Women Students advised me that I was “at a State Teacher’s College, and if you don’t sign up for Student Teaching, you won’t graduate.”  So I did.

I had a “Lifetime Teaching Certificate” and got a job as a school teacher, and taught first through 12th grade art (and English) for seven years.  Well, I tried to teach, but during those 7 years, I learned so much from my students!  There were so many rules in the Public School environment that discouraged creativity, so I quit!  I ran away with a very talented man who made amazing art without even copying pictures!!   We left Missouri in my VW van, heading for Florida to see if I could find some “real” artists!  We lived in campgrounds along the way, almost all the way to Key West, when the van engine blew in the middle of the 7-mile bridge.  We stayed in a campground on Sunshine Key, next to the garage where the VW waited for parts to be delivered.  We slept in the van at night and made art at our campsite in the daytime.

While living the life of a traveling artist. I began to realize how rigid the “rules” that I set for myself were, in the way of how I was supposed to create art. All these years of teaching other people that there are no rules and no mistakes in art, and there I was with so many for myself! My Creative Energy painting is an emergence from this cocoon. I allow the energy to flow through myself and my brush, and work to release this flow from my ideas of what is “right” and what is “wrong”. I work to free it with joyous expression. These new discoveries have breathed a new life and perspective to my portraits as well, showing me new hidden secrets in my subjects, colors and depths. I cannot wait to see what this journey will bring next!

This picture of me was taken on the day I stuck my paint brush, wet with blue paint behind my ear without realizing that it went brush-end first.  It left an interesting blue stripe in my hair which I found amusing. It was temporary, as so many works of art turn out to be.