We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Judith Eloise Hooper. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Judith below.

Judith, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

My mother was a trained opera singer and for her it was very important that her children have an appreciation of the arts. It was one of those moments where the fates were kind because my three brothers and I were born with the desire to create. So we were raised to sing, dance, write, draw, whatever creative way we wanted to express ourselves. I once overheard my mother telling someone i had a good voice but I preferred to stay up in my room and draw and write. From the time I was in kindergarten people acknowledged my ability. So it was always my path. Not only what I saw for myself but also what people expected of me.

I remember one parent/teacher night my mother and teacher having a conversation about a picture I’d drawn and they were marveling over my understanding of perspective and I thought what’s perspective? …… Those are just the little people who live under the mushroom.

Judith E.oise, 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 see art not really as a destination to be but a journey I travel. After going to Pratt Institute to study fashion design I worked as a fashion illustrator specializing in children’s fashion for a number of years and people found my work to be more illustrative than I guess commercial and after a few years in exchange for costume modeling was allowed to sit in on a class in writing and book illustration at SVA (School of Visual Arts) and at the end of a year illustrated my first children’s book. For years In spite of the diversity of my portfolio I was only offered black related material which was a small percentage of what opportunities were available for other artist.

I always say I just like making things and move freely between mediums. So because I felt my work was becoming too detailed and chatty I began to work in clay because it would be about shape and I wanted to do something where I couldn’t be designated to one thing so my work was functional art for tabletop and in the beginning of oriental design. My work appeared in such magazines as Vogue, Essence and Modern Bride and I was selected to be one of the NY Sunday Times Stylemakers.

After a long illness I decided I really needed to challenge myself as an artist and go deeper and through my art tell people what I felt. . I remember coming home one day and turning on the tv and there was a photographer talking to Charlie Rose who as the tv came on said “art is an act of generosity”.. I wrote it down on a little scrap of paper that move around in my studio waiting for me to rediscover it and each time I have taught repeat it asking my students to have the generosity to tell me what that are feeling. The illness also taught me I needed to be in a community of artist and one day found my way to BWAC (Brooklyn Waterfront Artist Coalition) where I made the shift to include my landscape sculptures. My clay work began to include these topographical landscapes where I wanted people to feel the love of the land that nurtures us and feel a sense of responsibility for the land.

When I have taught I love working with people who are challenged in some way helping them to use art as their voice to tell what they feel. So I have worked with the homeless. autistic children and volunteer at my local hospital creating art with patients. I now work with patients and their families in the cancer infusion center but it was my work in the hospitals psych ward that led me to my 3 D collage portrait sculptures. I had the patients do portraits of themselves so they could see how they saw themselves and I would do one of myself making fun of myself so they would know to have fun. For about five years I brought my portraits home and just stacked them in my closet then one summer it was time to show at BWAC and I hadn’t had time to fire anything and it was too hot to fire anything so I decided to take out the self portraits, give them a background, put them in a frame and hang them so I’d have something on the wall and I was so surprised by the response to them. It is now years later and it has been amazing being able to look at how this medium has grown for me and seeing how this collage work has affected my landscape work. The journey continues …..

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

When in high school we had to take an aptitude test and mine came back saying I should be a nurse or some kind of caretaker and I thought … well that will not be happening!”. Fast forward almost 50 years and I was doing my volunteer work at the hospital sharing my love of art to help people through what could be the most difficult or challenging time in their lives and I looked back to that moment and saw the test results were right …. it just didn’t see how I would accomplish my care taking. I feel I don’t teach you how to use the tools of art but how to find that place of creativity inside to tell what you are feeling.

During the pandemic when everything shut down and there were no exhibits, no deadlines to be met no money to be made I emotionally creatively shut down. A friend in Germany feeling isolated and depressed gathered on zoom his creaitive friends around the world . First we just talked about what we were feeling and then began to share with one another what we each did so one week I did a workshop on making the collage portraits. It was fun watching them look around their houses for paper and things to use to make their portraits watching them smile and laugh and I remembered i create art not for deadlines, or show or money but because it gives me joy. It was during this time I had submitted work to the Museum of the City of NY for an exhibit they were having on NYC responds to covid/BLM. Out of 20,000 submissions my piece was one of 100 chosen for the exhibit. The piece Say MY Name did everything I ask art to do it told people what I felt and made them feel something. I really felt validated.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I have already touched on some of the difficulties but a few years ago I was asked to be in a group show with two other collage artist each with a different approach. We meet decided on theme, sizes etc. One of the artist when we meet in my studio/home kept saying “I think we’re all on the same level” and when it came time to install and give out price list I was asked (more like bullied) by the curator to change my prices so he wouldn’t feel like his work was of lesser value. I sent the curator an email later to let her know how I felt about the call and said “So once again as an artist, as a woman, as a person of color I am being asked to lessen the value of what I do so some man can feel better about himself and someone else can make a profit.”

Because we create almost out of air almost like a magician people chose not to see the value in what artist do and we continually have to hold onto our value of ourselves and the work we create.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://juditheloisehooper.wordpress.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hooperjuditheloise/

Image Credits
these are all my own photographs that I have the right to submit.