Small Town News

Local painter, art teacher to be featured during studio tour

---

Judith "Judy" Walsh is a painter and art instructor. She specializes in the ancient medium of encaustic.

Encaustic is a beeswax based paint containing oil paint or pigment. It has been traced back to the ancient Egyptians around 100 - 300 A.D. Early Greeks and Romans used the art form. Contemporary artists attracted to the versatility of encaustic are now using it.

Judy has been an encaustic painter for 18 years. At one time she was the only artist in Arizona doing encaustic.

Judy started her art career painting with acrylics and working, with fiber. She participated in a two week encaustic workshop in Los Angeles and "fell in love with the medium" and has been working in encaustic ever since.

Judy uses bees wax, micro crystalline wax and oil paint in her encaustic. She applies layers of colored hot wax on a wood surface. She then scrapes, carves and sculpts the encaustic into a piece of art. She uses a "hot palette" to keep the different colored waxes at 200 degrees.

Besides brushes she uses tools including an iron and blow dryer to heat and manipulate the encaustic. She does not start with a plan. She begins to paint spontaneously and responds to the paint, color and texture.

"Like a young child," she said, "I discover what I am painting while I paint; images form and reform, dissolve and resolve in a non-logical way. Over time, shapes and symbols reappear without my conscious decision to use them."

She added, "My work as an artist is the process I go through to trick and frustrate that part of me that follows rules, uses logic and sees the world the way it really is."

The Victoria Boyce Gallery in Scottsdale, Arizona represents Judy. She has had a solo exhibition of her art there as well as the Showspace Gallery in Flagstaff and the Casa Grande Art Museum. She has been a featured artist at numerous galleries in Arizona including the Burton Ban-Central Library in Phoenix, Arizona Gallery at the University of Arizona, Shemer Art Museum in Phoenix, Adobe Gallery in Oracle and the Hayden Library at Arizona State University in Tempe. Her work has also appeared at many group shows in Scottsdale, Sun City, Phoenix and Tucson. Some of her work can now be seen at the Adobe Gallery at the Triangle L Ranch in Oracle.

Judy teaches encaustic. She taught at the Shemer Art Museum for 10 years. She now offers workshops at her studio for one or two students at a time.

Judy also makes jewelry. About five years ago it was so hot that she couldn't work with the beeswax as it tended to melt. She has always liked working with her hands so she started working with beads and making necklaces. Making jewelry allowed her to keep busy when she couldn't do encaustic work.

During the Oracle Artists Studio Tour, Judy's work' will be displayed at the Diana Creighton Studio. There will be some of her jewelry and small encaustic pieces. If you are interested in Judy's art or would like to learn encaustic at one of her workshops, you can contact her at (520)896-2079 or Email: heyjude@ earthlink.net.



Copyright 2010 The Superior Sun, Superior, Arizona. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from SmallTownPapers, Inc.

© 2010 The Superior Sun Superior, Nebraska. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from DAS.

More from The Superior Sun