Today we’d like to introduce you to Judith Eloise Hooper
Judith Eloise, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
My mother was a trained opera singer who married a man who wouldn’t let her sing. For her it was very important that her children have an appreciation of the arts. The fates were kind and my brothers and I were all born with the aptitude to be artist and the desire for what our mother had to give. We fed one another’s needs and our mother raised us to sing, to dance, to draw and write. To have a sense of wonder about the world and be creative people.
I went to Pratt Institute studying fashion illustration and design and worked as an illustrator and then book illustrator for a few years. For me, being an artist is more of a journey rather than a destination and each room I enter has doors to other rooms of creating. In my thirties I wanted to make the move from commercial art and began working in clay moving into fine art..
About sixteen years ago I began an art program in the psych ward at the hospital where I have been volunteering for about twenty three years. One day I asked the patients to do collage self portraits of how they see themselves, how they want to be seen or how they think others see them. I would do one of myself making fun of myself so they would know to have fun with the process.
For years the portraits I made of myself were just stacked on the top shelf of the closet in my studio. Back then I was only working in clay creating 3D topographical landscapes. The summer of 2013 I hadn’t fired anything and because my studio is in my home it was too hot to fire my kiln. So I decided to take out the collage portraits, give them a background and frame them. That way I would still have something to put up on the wall for the Brooklyn Waterfront Artist Coalition’s summer of 2013 exhibit. I had been a member since 2004. I was quite shocked by the incredible response to them. That began my work making 3D paper collage art.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Life without challenges produces very little growth so I have no regrets about the bumpy road that has led me to where I am now. I’ve been at this for over fifty years and as a person of color or as a woman there have been roadblocks I have had to find my way around, over or through. They have made me challenge myself to be better and stronger. Made me grow.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I’ll start with what I am most proud. During the pandemic The Museum of the City of New York had an exhibit on NY Responds to Covid/BLM. Out of over 20,000 submissions my submission was one of 100 selected for the exhibit. Generally my collage portraits are about intimate little moments within a person or between people but the isolation of the pandemic made me think bigger and be more metaphorical. I feel as a person of color I wear the history of blacks in America on my skin so I decided to dress the people in my portraits in our black American history.
About the second year into the pandemic I was allowed to go back to my volunteer work at the hospital via zoom. I was teaching people who were chronically or terminally ill how to do self portraits. After months of doing the on line classes I found my desktop littered with a diversity of faces because I would do a culturally different face every week. I then had my first solo exhibit with these faces called This Is America. I wanted people to look into these faces very different from their own but find a commonality in the expression or emotion to see how much alike we are.
No one else does 3D collage portraits the way I do them and I love how people relate to them because I am told “it makes them feel something”. I love how my work causes people to emotionally connect. But I also love how when teaching and sharing it with those who are challenged in some way art is healing for them. I use art to give a voice to their emotions.
Any big plans?
I’m taking some time off from exhibiting and meeting deadlines to just create. I’ve been asked to illustrate someones book of poems and am excited to be driven by words and emotions rather than deadlines.
I had collaborated with another artist whose work is very different from mine and loved the challenge of thinking outside my box and being inspired by someone else’s vision.We hope to collaborate some more in the future. It is my third time collaborating and I have learned so much from needing to think differently each time.
I love surprising myself with my work after taking a break. To paraphrase a quote … to change not by just finding new lands. but looking with new eyes. I am happy when I can purchase whatever I need to create something but equally enjoy when I have to decide what to do with what I already have that will take me somewhere new.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://juditheloisehooper.wordpress.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hooperjuditheloise/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkp3TCqICYM
