We were lucky to catch up with Judith Braun recently and have shared our conversation below.

Judith, appreciate you joining us today. What do you think matters most in terms of achieving success?

My view of success has evolved over time and my latest idea is that it is wherever I am. As an artist who aspires to participate in what is called the “art world”, I am aware of all the stages of recognition along the path. That sense of goals and competition is energizing and exciting, but can also be a source of disappointment and discouragement. Early on, as an artist, I would say success would be a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, now I might say to have one at any decent small museum anywhere in the world! But even the latter may not happen while I’m alive. So, now, at 76 years old, with a formidable history, but no retrospective lined up, I want to be at peace with what I have accomplished to date. That’s easier said than done. It’s a philosophy that I believe in, and in fact I do think I have been successful (ish), but I still have hopes and dreams. I rely on my more transcendent ideal to shake off negative feelings when they come, reminding myself of all that I have done. So many shows, so much travel, press, sales, commissions, and an amazing community of other artists from living in New York City. But I’ve learned that this art-life is a long game. It’s about the creative process and the challenges over a lifetime, and I cannot control the outcomes. The arts do not travel the simple trajectories that many careers do. To keep at it, I have to believe it is an essential human endeavor of the highest order.

Judith, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I came of age in the Sixties, so I was an anti-establishment and back-to-nature young woman, from the streets of the East Village to mountain communes. In the midst of that my parents sent me to the Fashion Institute of Technology, in New York City in 1965, where I learned the discipline of figure drawing. As might have been expected, commercial art was not for me. I think that was the turning point when I understood the difference between making art as a job, or expressing my own vision. For a while I tried crafts, but that too was restraining. A bit lost and recoiling from some life turmoil, I headed back to school as a single mom, to get an MFA in 1983. There I had a professor who said, “you have to take yourself seriously.”

That lesson led me to set up a studio and I actually began showing my work. Within a few years I’d reached “emerging artist” status, not an easy feat in the heart of New York. Then, another hurdle when my second marriage ended in 1994, and I needed a real job. By chance some freelance “faux-finishing” work came along and with my artistic skills I was pretty good at it and soon found I had a budding business. Unfortunately, I felt unfulfilled, missing the art life I had begun to love. So, in 2004 I did my annual Tarot Card reading, inquiring what to do about this problem. The central card that I got was “The Lovers”, which is about having a good relationship, whether with a lover or with oneself. I knew it meant giving equal voice, either way. In this introspective moment I “heard” a voice in my heart cry out that it was not being heard, and it was the voice of the artist inside me. I had silenced her, saying it was too late, she wasn’t that important, I was too old now, and I needed this money. I was faced with having asked myself this question, and would have to listen to the answer that was loud and clear. I knew at that moment that it was my life at stake, and I would not want to look back someday and regret that I had not done what I really wanted to do.

So I began the change. I rearranged my schedule to take only the freelance jobs necessary to pay the bills. It’s not easy to turn down work, as a freelancer. But I had a new purpose in my life. All other money and time, would go to being in my studio and trying to show my work again. I gave myself a three-year window of opportunity, to try to accomplish this without second-guessing. Enough time to make new work, make new contacts, and make it happen. Then, and this was important also, if nothing happened, I would revisit the whole story again in three years. As it turned out the new work I began, called “Symmetrical Procedures”, was liked by a small new gallery in the burgeoning Lower East Side art scene, and I did a solo show in 2008. The rest is history.

My exhibition history and press is viewable on my website. Most are art venues, but I have also done a number of corporate commissions, which raises the earlier issue I had with making art for clients. The first one was for BURTON snowboards, and I initially declined the offer saying I didn’t do commercial work. Ultimately, they convinced me that they wanted me to do “what I already do” so I agreed. A year later, 2014, someone texted me to ask if that was my board that Kelly Clark was riding in the Women’s Olympic Team! I was so shocked and proud, and that experience has opened me up to corporate requests. The key is that I never reach out and look for them, so that means when someone contacts me it’s because they already know what I do. That gives me the leverage I want so I can be true to myself. I always tell them up front, I don’t make art by committee.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

I have had to personally weigh out the value of being an artist in a world where I could also help needy children, or serve any number of other social human needs. Those are things I also felt called towards, in big sister programs for example. So, when I found myself drawn into the world of art-making I gave it serious consideration, so that I could do it without feeling guilty that I wasn’t doing something more practical. And I came to the conclusion that art is also essential in human life. That infants respond to music immediately, bouncing their little legs, and cave drawings are evidence of how primal picture making is as well. It’s akin to language itself. And then literature, and all the other arts. I would not want a world that didn’t have this creative sensual expression weaving us all together. So that is why I make the art I make, to nourish human life.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.judithannbraun.com
• Instagram: Judith Braun
• Facebook: Judith Ann Braun
• Youtube: @judithannbraun
• Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/judithannbraun

Image Credits

1) Circland #4, graphite on paper, 36 x 36 in, 2016 2) Fingering #16, charcoal fingerprints on wall, Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, 12 x 12 ft, 2015 3) BKS-16-3, graphite on Dura-lar, 16 x 16 in, 2010 4) FPC 16-1, charcoal fingerprint on paper, 19 x 19 in, 2016 5) Psycho Tears, acrylic on raw canvas, grommets, 79 x 72 in, 2022 6) Symmetrical Procedure TTC-16-7, graphite on paper, 16 x 16 in, 2008 7) BKS-13-3, graphite on Dura-lar, 13 x 13 in, 2014 8) Pink Tears, acrylic on raw canvas, grommets, 79 x 72 in, 2022