Judith Roderick was a painting and design major at Carnegie Institute of Technology, in Pittsburgh, Pa. for 3 years and graduated from the University of Michigan in 1964.
Judith touched upon the Batik process while at Tech and has been working primarily with fiber ever since. She first created large batik banners, and later batik clothing, and quilts. Moving to Albuquerque in 1975, she started showing at Mariposa Gallery and did the New Mexico Arts and Crafts Fair and the Southwest Arts and Crafts Festival. In 1982, when the silk dyes first became available in the US, she started painting on silk. That began a long, successful, Wearable Arts career, with her hand-painted silk clothing being shown in national shows and represented in many galleries across the country.
She owned Village Wools, a fiber supply store in Albuquerque, NM, for 10 years, where she taught silk painting classes on a monthly basis, carried all of the supplies, and provided a steaming service. She also taught at Ghost Ranch Conference Center in northern NM from 1982 to 2002, and from her studios for decades.
Judith is a Juried Artist Member of SAQA, Studio Art Quilt Associates, and a member of Silk Painters International. For decades she has served the art community as a board member, a speaker, a juror, and a curator of many shows. Her work has appeared in numerous publications. She has won many awards including Best Use of Color at the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival in 2014 and Best of Show in The Visions Gallery Quilt show in Chandler Arizona in 2014. She was the Featured Artist of the Albuquerque, N.M. Fiber Arts Fiesta in May of 2015, and had a large solo show, a retrospective of her work at Placitas Artist Series at the Placitas Presbyterian Church in April 2017. Her work has been shown in a multitude of Quilt Festivals, Museums, local, National and International Juried Shows and is in many public and private collections, including our Open Space Visitors Center here in Albuquerque.
Artist Statement
I delight in color and pattern, and in the beauty and diversity of nature. As a long-time silk painter, I create the cloth from which I make my quilts. I still love the spontaneity and flow of the colors, the brilliance with which the silk takes the dye. I draw well, and love to depict nature, the flora and fauna of the natural world. It is exciting to create the whole cloth images that capture my imagination. My quilts are figurative, complex, and are often embellished with vintage buttons or shell and stone beads. I find the complex, multi-layered and meditative quality of creating art quilts very satisfying.
I have a great love of the Earth and a great concern about the current trajectory of life on our planet. I love the beauty and diversity of what still exists here, and do all that I can to preserve it, which includes its depiction in my work. In our fast-paced modern world, it is so important to stop, notice and appreciate the beauty that surrounds us. For the health of our body, mind, and spirit, it is necessary daily to feel gratitude, to be uplifted by that which makes our heart glad! I create from this space of gratitude, and it is my intention to send that out into the world through my Art Quilts.
