Judith Lowry
About Judith
I was Born in Washington D.C., at Walter Reed Hospital in 1948. My father and mother met at a USO dance during WWII and maintained a four-year correspondence after the war ended. During that long-distance courtship, they decided to wed, so my Mother sailed to the U.S. on the good ship Marine Phoenix to marry my father.
My father was a career army officer, so most of our family’s life was spent traveling and living around the world. My brother and I attended grade school in Germany, Australia and many states in the U. S. I attended high schools in California, Maryland, and Japan. The experience of growing up in a mixed-race family, against the backdrop of so many different cultural settings, provided me with a personal world view from which I draw much of my artistic inspiration. In Europe, at age 6, I was dazzled by the Creation stories of the Renaissance that I saw firsthand in sumptuous palaces, towering cathedrals, and treasure-filled museums. Many of my paintings reflect an early fascination with allegorical works of artists like Giotto Botticelli and Fra Angelico.
I began my adult career in art as a photographer. I later attended University and earned a Master’s degree in Painting, while raising a family. When I began to formally exhibit, many of my works were visual interpretations of the Maidu/Pit River creation stories that my father told me, stories that his grandmother told him. These tales had come down to him through many generations, and now to me and to his grandchildren. With my father's encouragement and blessing, I came to consider my work to be a modern extension of the tradition of storytelling. Oral traditions are being threatened by modern pressures, distractions, and the passage of time. Before these allegories are lost in the fog of a distant past, I work to preserve these stories by making them visible. It’s a calling and a responsibility because I also recognize that the old Maidu stories are allegories. They paint a picture of the moral values of my ancestors, who were peaceful, industrious, reverent people who walked gently upon the earth. Now more than ever, their ways should not be forgotten.
Boolaroo — Some people are born to make art. That’s what happened to me. It was never a question. From my earliest memories, I can recall being blissfully absorbed by creating something with my hands. I also remember feeling different because of that.
Once, when I was nearly five, attending Booalaroo Infants School in Australia, our teacher gave us plasticine clay and told us to make something. The other children made dogs or snakes, some kind of animal mostly. It had rained very hard the day before. My mother and I were waiting for our bus after some shopping and our clothing got wet. So, I decided to design a circular bus stop shelter, about five inches in height, with Iittle chairs in a circle facing outward. They were underneath an umbrella-shaped roof supported by a kiosk column in the center. When the time came to show our projects, the teacher smiled and praised the little Aussie children for their pieces, but when she came to mine she did not smile or say anything nice. She asked me what it was. I explained it to her and the class, how I would like to build a real one when I am grown, so people wouldn’t have to stand in the rain as they waited for the bus. She looked at me, still not smiling, and said she didn’t understand and could I explain again, so I patiently repeated what I had said. She once again claimed she could not understand what I was talking about. She then dismissed the class for recess.
That was the day, and the very moment, I realized critics are not to be taken seriously.
