Judith Roderick
Placitas, New Mexico

Artist and Nature Painter

I was born and raised in the hilly green country of western Pennsylvania, and loved wandering through Nature there. I started studying art in 5th grade and attended Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh and University of Michigan as a Painting and Design Major. After graduation and newly married, I moved to Alamogordo, NM, with my spouse and was stunned to see the bare bones of the Earth without all that vegetation! After a year or so, I came to terms with the fact that there was no ”middle ground”€ here (the big green trees that enveloped me in the east); but the Microcosm, the crinoids, cactus, small creatures and rocks I found in my walks in the desert, and the Macrocosm, the mountains and vast vistas of sky, were stunning. I fell in love with New Mexico.

I started out oil painting, but switched to Fiber Art when I got pregnant: mainly batik, which I did during the raising of two children and three relocations around the country, finally returning to NM in the mid 70s, settling in Albuquerque. I started creating Wearable Art in the form of Batiked Clothing, and then started a 10 year adventure as an owner of Village Wools, a fiber supply store in Albuquerque. Switching media to silk painting in the early 80s, I delighted in its brighter, luminous colors, and began a long career of creating Silk Painted Clothing which was exhibited far and wide, in Mariposa and other local and national Galleries and at the major Art Fairs. During that time, I also designed and painted costumes for the Civic Light Opera, and was written up in New Mexico Magazine. I taught others the technique of silk painting for over 20 years, out of Village Wools, at my studios, and in the summers at Ghost Ranch in northern NM.

As the Wearable Art business waned, I tapered out of the Fiber Art world and focused more on my own inner journey. A need for more peace and quiet instigated a move to Placitas in the late 90s, chosen for the expansiveness and accessibility to Nature that exists here. I spent the next several years doing the art form of “moving rocks around”€, creating myself a sanctuary, with a small oasis and wildlife viewing area, and a large walking meditation area of a double spiral of rocks. Now I contemplate life, observe Nature, paint silk at home, and paint watercolors, either out the windows, or Plein Air, on location out in the landscape. I also paint Cranes, from my sketches and photographs.

Last year, I wrote a book, POEMS FROM THE SANDHILL CRANES, containing 25 poems and illustrated with 25 of my crane images. This year, I am working on painting all of the 15 remaining crane species left on the planet. A trip to the International Crane Foundation in Baraboo Wisconsin last Sept. has given me two sketchbooks and hundreds of photographs to work from. 

My silk scarves, cards and book are available at the Nature Shop at the Rio Grande Nature Center. My book is also available at the Bosque del Apache Nature Shop. I show at the Crane Festivals at Bosque del Apache in November and Monte Vista Colorado in March.

For more information, visit my website www.judithroderick.com. Call or send e-mail to arrange a studio visit.