Brattleboro, Vt. – Painter Judy Hawkins, whose studio is a popular stop on the annual Putney Craft Tour in November, is showing recent work in gallery spaces at All Souls Church UU in West Brattleboro through the end of March. An artist’s reception is set for 2 to 4 p.m. on Saturday, February 13.
Judy knew she was an artist from the age of five or six and always seemed to have a view of her surroundings that was different from that of her friends. “When I paint,” she shares, “I have an internal ‘dialog’ with myself. I think this ‘conversation’ is hard-wired, but I’ve only recently recognized how important and integrated it is to how I see and interpret my sensory world, and how it takes form and color in my painting.”
In addition to her familiar luminous landscapes, Judy’s recent paintings “explore water in varied dimensions, from the pond bottom through layers of water, to surface tension and reflection, to water splashes and ripples. . . . I begin a new painting at the top and work my way down, working quickly to establish mood through color and composition. I allow the paint, drips and accidental color combinations, to guide my vision.”
Her paintings take shape through the layering of thin glazes of oil paint on canvas, removing and blending color with turpentine and rags, and reapplying paint again and again. This evolutionary process results in paintings that often end up quite different from their beginnings. Sometimes she even revisits older work to allow reinterpretation, “using the painting as a ‘jumping off point’ for change and renewal. I let the process take me where it will.”
After studying at the Boston University School of Fine Arts and the Brooklyn Museum School, Judy majored in art at Windham College in Putney, and later taught design and drawing there. Now retired from teaching special education in Vermont Public Schools, she has taught painting privately to middle/high school students and adults in her studio.
The reception on February 13 offers an opportunity to talk with the artist about her work and the creative process, as well as enjoy a bountiful refreshment table provided by the All Souls Arts Committee. Otherwise, the gallery is open for visitors during public events in the building as well as 9 to 12 on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, and on Tuesdays from 10 to 2.
In addition to the Judy Hawkins exhibit, several paintings, photographs, prints, and fine art posters from the Beverly Alberts Collection, donated to All Souls in 2015, are available for purchase in the Main Hall.
All Souls Church Unitarian Universalist is in the West Village Meeting House at 29 South St., across from the West Brattleboro village green, about 1.2 miles along Rt. 9 from Exit 2 off I-91. Take a left at the blinking light, passing the fire station, and head across South St. up the church driveway to a parking area by the building. All Souls is handicap-accessible. For further information, call (802) 254-9377.