Judy was severely developmentally disabled. She had an IQ somewhere in the 30s. Mostly she did not use language at all.

Her works, displayed at her memorial, were fanciful, cocoon-like blobs of bright yarn and wire, embedded with objects.

I never did "get" abstract art. I couldn't understand the appeal of Jackson Pollock and his random-looking paint squiggles, though he had many more exhibitions and made lots more money than Judy ever did. I also did not "get" Judy's sculpture, which looked simply childish to me--until I listened to the tributes given by staff at the Creative Growth Center, where Judy worked in the studio each day for twenty years.

The comments of her artist mentors focused less on the characteristics of her finished pieces, and more on Judy's artistic process.

Judy came in to the studio early each morning. She went to where her latest work-in-progress was stored, and got it out, and got out her materials. She worked long hours, with great determination and energy, to execute her vision.

She couldn't tell us why she created her pieces or what they meant to her. She never knew the reaction her pieces generated in the world, and did not have the conceptual understanding to care.

The commemoration of her life and work was, as much as anything, a celebration of the "pure" artistic impulse.
8:12:52 PM    comment []