Judith Scott - artist extraordinary  1943-2005

The Judith Scott Fan Club

The Judith Scott Fan Club provides a forum where people interested in Judith Scott and her art can post comments, exchange views and learn about related sites, books, films, recent articles and up-coming exhibitions.

To subscribe to the Judith Scott Fan Club
Email us at: judithscottart@aol.com 

Please keep us informed of any relevant news or Internet postings you come across.

Please note that subscription is free and that your information remains private and never shared

Judith Scott is now on Facebook
Click here or visit
 http://www.facebook.com/judithscott.artist
Please don't forget to 'Like' us

     Judith Scott is attracting great, and enthusiastic attention on Twitter.   
There are far more tweets than can be covered here.  
To follow the buzz visit:     http://twitter.com/_judithscott

 
EnTWINed: 
Echoes from the Silent World of Judith Scott
by Joyce Wallace Scott
Now has a leading New York Agent 
To learn more about this compelling book 
Click here  

If you might be interested in subscribing to EnTWINed, please email us at: judithscottart@aol.com

Excerpts from Recent (and not so recent) Internet Postings and emails:
please keep them coming

Note:  From September, 2011 new posts will appear at the TOP of this list

The exhibition of Judy's work in Paris is truly beautiful, as this picture shows.    

To learn more read Susan Owensby's report  on RTF and listen to her very insightful interview with 
Tom DiMaria,  the Director of Creative Growth.  The 'Listen' link to this interview appears at the top of the 
interview  page.         

It can also be accessed through Judy's Facebook page:

www.facebook.com/judithscott.artist.

Please visit her page and remember to click both the 'LIKE" and 'SHARE' buttons.

Creative Growth will be at the Outsider Art Fair in New York

Booth #A6
7 W New York ®

7 West 34th Street off 5th Avenue

New York, NY 10001

Preview

Thursday January 26, 2012

6:30 - 9:00pm

Judy's work will be represented

The BBC ran a great segment on Judith in their hugely popular weekly 'Culture Club' program during the recent, spectacular 'Museum of Everything' exhibition of her work in London.   This can now be seen on Judith's facebook page:
www.facebook.com/judithscott.artist.

Please visit, 'LIKE' and 'SHARE'

"Hostage: New and selected poems" by Emily Frago [Published 2011 by The Sheep Meadow Press]  Art Brut, a poem about Judith Scott

Judy's Exhibition at the College des Bernardins in Paris opens on October 11.  Don't miss it if you happen to be in town.
Joyce was there and was on the platform taking part in a public discussion of Judy's work.

A major exhibition of Judy's work, with 60 pieces on display, will open in London on October 12 at the Museum of Everything's gallery at Selfridges.   
The BBC are planning a program about her, and will be interviewing Joyce for it, as well as for radio spots and newspaper articles.

If you are in NewYork, make a special effort to visit the American Folk Art Museum.   Their new exhibition, drawn from material in their permanent collection, entitled "Approaching Abstraction" features work by Judy and has drawn enthusiastic reviews.

In  a recent email sam, aka sheila sabatino, wrote: 

 "Joyce, I am really looking forward to reading ENTWINED -- I can't even get the words and feelings out that I want to express to you -- reading only a part of your story, I feel something so special has been added to my life---- anybody that gets to know you through your writings will have some wonderful pieces added to their heart and soul as I have--with the utmost of respect and feelings"

Amber (http://chicken-n-waffles.blogspot.com) has written:

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

"Outsider: The Life and Art of Judith Scott [a film by Betsy Bayha] delves into the life of a compelling, creative and talented individual who has survived in the face of daunting odds to create rich and intriguing works of art."

"Judith Scott has Downs Syndrome, is deaf and does not speak. Yet after 35 years of institutionalization, with the help of a sister who never gave up on her, she emerged to create a series of sculptures that have fascinated and mystified art experts and collectors around the world."

Martha Miller (marthamillerart.blogspot.com) writes: 

The Unstoppable Judith Scott 

I first read about Judith Scott in a Treasures of the Soul Visions magazine from the American Visionary Art Museum five years ago. This excerpt from the Visions magazine article describes Judith's creative process:

Judith works constantly, but there are moments when, unpredictably, she goes off on "shopping expeditions." She checks various nooks and crannies, even private offices, all over the studio, acquiring magazines, various objects, bits of rejected material, or more yarn. She is almost invisible on these hunting forays, very secretive as she conceals things in her purse or her bags. Her creative process involves theft. Things disappear. Spools of yarn, thread, string, disappear. Wood, cardboard, metal objects, disappear. The people around her have adapted. This is not easy when your purse or wallet, the magazine you were reading, or your car keys are involved. At Creative Growth Art Center theft as a creative principle has been accepted, with the disappearance of thousands of dollars worth of yarn, cord, and string, now budgeted for. Needless to say, Judith's work could never have unfolded in a huge custodial institution.

This process involving theft makes so much sense to me. With every sculpture Judith re-enacted how her life was stolen from her. This was her core issue, and it forms the core of each piece she created. This just kills me. 

Gloria Maria Cappelletti commented:.

"Judith Scott cocoons are the most incredible art works i have ever seen. so powerful and true. "

Bill Schubert of the Headfooters Gallery, Cleveland, OH (www.headfooters.com) wrote:

"Another thrill, though of a different kind, came when Tom [DiMaria] showed me the "Judith Room" where all of Judith Scott's work is stored. Judith had just passed away a few month's earlier, and her absence was a palpable presence everywhere in the building, but, especially in this dim, crowded room. Her life's work -- all that is not in some fabulous museum or private collection -- was in this space. Mysterious cocoons, shrouded in plastic, each of these objects seem to hold a piece of the secret that was Judith. Thank you to Tom and Jennifer for choosing to let Headfooters be the first gallery to exhibit her work since her death. We feel honored."

Writing of the Museum De L'Art Brut, Lausanne, Switzerland "This amazing place, with its black-walled galleries is Yankee Stadium for Outsider Art fans. At the heart of the museums vast collection is Jean Dubuffet's own original collection. Only ten percent of the collection is on display at any given time, but the ten percent that we saw was truly amazing. Wolfli, Aloise, Zinelli, Walla, Van Genk, Ted Gordon, Dwight Mackintosh, Judith Scott, and on and on. Don't miss any opportunity to visit this shrine!"

From Educational Media On-Line Reviews:

Outsider: The Life and Art of Judith Scott     Reviewed by Fran Mentch, Cleveland State University

Recommended
 
"The documentary Outsider: The Life and Art of Judith Scott begins in an art exhibit, where the large fiber works of Judith Scott are being admired and discussed. When we later see the artist at work it is shocking; her appearance is very different from the image our culture has of popular artists and their public personas. She has Down syndrome and can neither hear nor speak. Most of the film is footage of her working in the Creative Growth Art Center in Oakland, California. Staff there provide some history and some description of her creative process, but overall, her disabilities and the circumstances of her life are explained in rather veiled terms, with little detail.

Judith Scott’s story illuminates what were our society’s attitudes about the disabled a generation ago. Her deafness went undiscovered for many years, and was mistaken for profound retardation. She spent most of her life in an institution for the developmentally disabled. When her twin reached middle age and reflected on her own life story, she decided it was imperative to move Judith to a group home close to her so that they could share the rest of their lives. Judith was scheduled to attend the Creative Growth Art Center as part of her activities and it was there that she blossomed as an artist.

It is fun and inspiring to watch Judith so focused on her work and clearly enjoying this later stage of life. She developed a flamboyant appearance, with colorful head scarves and accessories, which raises questions about how and why we develop personal style and use it to communicate with the world about who we are.

Because Judith is so creative and compelled to express herself through art, her story is instructive about the nature of human creativity, human intelligence and the meaning of art. The interview with her sister also sheds light on sibling relationships and the fact that middle-age sends many people into reflecting and changing their lives. Students and faculty studying psychology, art, art therapy, occupational therapy and developmental disabilities will all find that Judith’s story pushes them to look at their work in a new way.

Additionally, the film will be useful to art students and faculty learning about “Outsider Art”, which seems to have an increasing presence in contemporary popular culture.

Finally, any non-profit trying to expand its services to include an art center will no doubt find that this film is very persuasive and will help them recruit supporters." 

Disability Aestheics by Tobin Siebers, University of Michigan is dedicated to Judith Scott.  

Film at International House, Philadelphia:"

What's Under Your Hat?

dir. Lola Barrera and Inaki Penafiel, Spain, 2007, video, 75 mins, color

Judith Scott (1943-2005) became a renowned artist - creating abstract, intertwined objects made out of yarn - after an inauspicious start to life, and many years of living in a State institution with her needs and abilities unrecognized and unsupported. Scott's great good fortune was to be born a twin. Her sister Joyce was able eventually to reconnect with her, rescue her from the institution, and introduce her to the Creative Growth Art Center in Oakland, California, where her artistic expression flourished. Filmmakers Lola Barrera and Julio Medem have produced a film that is engaging, confronting, uplifting, heartbreaking, hopeful, deeply respectful of the art that is its focus, and at times very funny.

Emily Fragos, Poetry Professor at Columbia University, in a letter to Joyce Scott writes:

 "You acted on one decision, to bring your long-lost sister to live with you, and you altered so many lives: Judy's life, your life, your children's lives, the lives of all those who revere and are so inspired by your sister's profound, gorgeous art.  How can we ever thank you?"

Professor Fragos also wrote the following poem on first seeing Judith's work at the Rico-Maresca Gallery in New York.  We thank her for permitting us to reproduce it here:

"Art Brut

Judith Scott, in memoriam 1943-2005

Her bundled woebegones,
Her sheltered primevals,
With a stapler lodged in the brain,
Torso stuffed with a corkscrew,
Sister's lost car keys, child's left shoe,
Or bits of foam, scraps of wood,
And the broken back of a chair,
Give up all hope for a better past.
Judy pulls the living from the dead.
Whatever is at her slippered feet,
Within her ravenous, flower-girl grasp --
The process is unstoppable.
The process is humming."

Emily, thank you so much for sharing this with us.

Writing of her film Outsider: The life and art of Judith Scott, Betsy Bayha says:

"It is a documentary that transports viewers into a realm that is little seen and even less understood - the creative life of an "Outsider" artist."  Adding also that it "delves deeply into the life of a compelling, eccentric and talented individual who has survived in the face of daunting odds."

Art Critic Michael Bonesteel had written:

"Making something out of nothing, or precisely, luring something from the unconscious and giving it material form is the closest thing to real magic there is in this world."

Barbara Lee Smith then observed:

"There is magic in the art and life of Judith Scott.   That she is even making her powerful forms is a happy ending to the grimest of fairy tales."

Quoted from:  Judith Scott: Finding a Voice by Barbara Lee Smith

Amber Tait, of the Arts and Humanities Council of Tulsa, will introduce "Outsider: The Life and Art of Judith Scott" on Aug. 18. Scott produced densely layered, abstract yarn sculptures. She was an artist with Down Syndrome who spent 35 years in an institution after being branded profoundly retarded. 

Judy’s work figures in a new exhibition at the Whitworth Gallery in Manchester, England. Based on the Musgrave Kinley Outsider Art Collection, it was opened by Monika Kinley on 25 June 2010.

2010 International VSA arts Education Festival
"Creating a society where people with disabilities can learn through, participate in, and enjoy the arts"

Joyce Wallace Scott, Judith Scott's twin sister, addressed the 2010 International VSA Arts Education Conference on Thursday, June 10th in Washington, DC at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and showed the film'Outsider'.

WOW!

On the 6^th of October 2010 the Museum Gugging in Austria will open a new special exhibition:

“Judith & Shields! – Judith Scott meets tribal art”.

"The exhibition is centered on impressive sculptures by the Artist Judith Scott and accompanied by shields from New Guinea."

Joy Corcoran has written ( http://joycorcoranstudio.com/2010/07/26/art-therapy-more-than-either/)

"I was at my friend Amy Henderson’s house for her birthday party on Friday evening. She is the founder of the Geezer Gallery here in a Portland and an advocate of keeping Art in our lives from birth til we leave this planet — and hopefully beyond.  She had this installation on her wall:

Tribute to Judith Scott by Mar Goman

I was both repelled and attracted to it.  On the one hand it looked like embalmed bodies, on the other it looked like figures about to burst forth from a binding cocoon.  I asked Amy about it and she told me it was Portland artist Mar Goman’s tribute to Judith Scott.

Judith Scott was an “outsider” artist who’s story is both tragic and redemptive." .......................   

 We were sorry to miss this!

http://www.nyartbeat.com/event/2010/4853

Two quotes from the new Gugging Museum catalogue; Judith Scott meets tribal Art

Johann Feilacher on “judith & shields.!”
This exhibition presents works side by side that could not be more different from each other: `feminine´ wool in the hands of a woman who created contemporary art without ever having taken an interest in the art of her time, much less having been part of its world during her lifetime; and `masculine´ objects, hailing from a culture that’s removed from today by millennia and primarily serving a military and ritual purpose.
Both of them have one thing in common: their originality – their production was uninfluenced by the norms and tendencies of the twentieth century, yet the receptive development of Western culture was necessary to appreciate them as art. A seeming paradox, which meets the onlooker’s wish for the Unknown, the New and the Foreign.
Johann FEILACHER is the curator of the exhibition and artistic director of the Museum Gugging.

Judith Scott – the Artist
Three-dimensional artworks are very rare in Art Brut, and women are a minority among the artists. Judith Scott not only forms part of that minority, she also represents a definite highlight in international Art Brut. She was a woman with a difficult personal fate, who unexpectedly emerged from her isolation after many years of introversion and created innovative and unique artworks out of conventional materials and objects. She is one of the most important artists of the twentieth century, not only in Art Brut, but also in the context of contemporary art.

An interesting exhibition opened on 11 June, 2009 in Riom (Puy de Dôme, 63) at the école d'arts plastiques.  Children who had seen OUTSIDER: The Life and Art of Judith Scott  were then invited to create their own sculptures in the same genre.  

"So complete and insistent is Scott's work that it renders artistic parallels somewhat futile and comparable artists mannered"

Art 21 Blog, Letter from London.  

"Her eerily beautiful enigmas shrouded in tinted wool evoke something dead, trapped or about to be born.  They might mummies or cocoons"

Ariella Budick: That inescapable sense of soul.  Financial Times, 

World Transformers;the Art of the Outsiders.  A new exhibition at the Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, Germany, in which the work of Judy is featured   Opens 24 September, 2010

http://ilseacke.blogspot.com/   writes:

"Judith Scott (1943-2005) was a powerful visual artist,
who was isolated from outside influences through
the combined impact of deafness and Down Syndrome.
Very independent and self-directed,
she was endlessly creative and never repeated a form or color scheme.
Crafting armatures of bamboo slats or other discarded materials,
she wrapped these forms with lengths of knotted cloth or yarn. 

Judith was introduced to fiber art in 1987 at Creative Growth Art Center,
and produced a remarkable body of wrapped sculptures.
Roger Cardinal and John MacGregor, internationally known scholars
and experts in the field, have both designated Judith an exceptional “outsider artist”
as her sculptures reflect little cultural input and are highly individualistic,
reflecting Judith’s own unique personal vision.
Many will argue that Judith Scott should be viewed simply as an exceptional artist.
That she was also disabled, while making her story all the more remarkable,
has little bearing on her art itself."

'Swagger, Drag, Fit Together' is a new exhibition opening at the Wallspace Gallery on West 27th Street in New York, that features work by Judith Scott and others.

"The exhibition brings together a diverse group of works dating back to 1949 that explore the body through its absence, abstraction and evocation in everyday objects. Drawing its title from a stop-motion video by Laura Riboli of objects shuffling through space, “Swagger,” features numerous pieces that perform a similarly playful anthropomorphism."

Judy's sculptures continue to serve as an inspiration to young and aspiring artists.  The Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt has programs for children that includes  workshop facilities.  Recently 5-year-old Eva Lotte, after seeing some of Judy's work, was inspired to create a beautiful spider sculpture.  http://kleckser.wordpress.com/2010/11/14/sculpture-spider-web-after-judith-scott/

"Judith and Shields"   This amazing exhibition at the Gugging Museum in Austria contrasts Judy's work with traditional shields from the highland tribes of New Guinea.  The accompanying catalogues are a wonderful tribute to Judy's art  -  beautifully photographed and superbly reproduced.  We understand they are available through Creative Growth in Oakland, CA (www.creativegrowth.org) for only $20 - great value for anyone interested in Outsider Art.

Sophie Truong has recently written (http://stitchandtickle.blogspot.com/)

"I am feeling a bit in a creative rut these days so as usual, I turn towards long standing list of favorite artists of mine for inspiration.  Outsider artist Judith Scott (1943-2005) is one of them."

Judy's work was featured at Lesley University in a panel discussion on disability as part of diversity.

"Judith Scott (1943 - 2005) was a fiber artist known for her abstract masses of found objects transformed by yarn and fabric wrappings. Her sculptures have been displayed around the world and are part of the permanent collections at The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art in Chicago and the Musee d’Art Brut in Lausanne, Switzerland. She who born with Down syndrome, was deaf, and had little language. She spent thirty-five years in an institution, but then just a few years after leaving blossomed with her artwork. In addition to Scott’s work, the film focuses on the enormous love and respect that her family and friends had for her as a person."

We thank Rick Mullin for allowing us to reprint his poem 'Sculpture', which appeared in American Arts Quarterly (http://www.nccsc.net/poetry).

Sculpture

Judith Scott - Touching to Feel

[http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/10046]

An interesting examination of Judith's work in relation to Eve Sedgwick’s Touching Feeling: Affect, Pedgagogy, and Performativity. 

YouTube - Outsider The Life and Art of Judith Scott preview Added to queue Outsider: The Life and Art of Judith Scott - pr...by STFFestival 16541 views · Thumbnail 4:18. Add to. Added to queue LA ... www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pcjl9WS-Eag

http://ilseacke.blogspot.com/

"Roger Cardinal and John MacGregor, internationally known scholars
and experts in the field, have both designated Judith Scott an exceptional “outsider artist” as her sculptures reflect little cultural input and are highly individualistic,
reflecting Judith’s own unique personal vision.

A billion tastes and tunes: Judith Scott
I'm enchanted by these wrapped sculptures by outsider artist Judith Scott. I was reminded of them after I posted those nests by Richard Barnes. ...
abilliontastesandtunes.blogspot.com/2011/01/judith-scott.html

Creative Growth: An interview with Tom di Maria

http://www.kqed.org/arts/multimedia/article.jsp?essid=20885

Dates from 2007, but nevertheless significant.

Damon McLeese  wrote:
"Amazing Talented, reminds us all of the power of creativity and the importance of letting everyone explore their inner artist."

http://www.facebook.com/n/?permalink.php&story_fbid=10150166082383624&id=144988568623&mid=418da78G3ea65db9G6a251d4G1&bcode=EuGHD4lX&n_m=joycescott%40gmail.com

BAM exhibit creates visual wonder from unlikely sources

From a review of the Berkeley Art Museum exhibition of work by disabled artists By Ryan Lattanzio
"But not all the artists stick to the canvas. Judith Scott's wrapped sculptures bring 3-D texture to the exhibit.
 These mixed media cocoons ordinary objects like a chair or a tire in variegated string, scarves, high heels and 
broken Christmas lights, to name a few. Scott's sculptures are like packages from a living, breathing junkyard, 
where stuff begets more stuff."

Announcement of a forthcoming exhibition of Judith's work in Paris

The College des Bernardins , a 13th century building  near the Cathedral Notre-Dame in Paris, is a gallery of
contemporary art.  They are planning an exhibition of the "very impressive, meaningful and beautiful work" of Judith's sculptures
in the Fall of 2011.

Create  [An exhibition containing work by Judith Scott]

A national tour of Create is being organized by Independent Curators International (ICI).

Judith Scott: Untitled, 2003; mixed media sculpture; 19 x 8 x 9 in.; courtesy Creative Growth Art Center, Oakland.

Judith is one of the artists featured at the Mitchell-Innes & Nash Gallery,  534 W 26th Street New York, NY

"Judith Scott’s textile-based sculptures, created from wrapping a variety of objects in yarn and string, call to mind forms like totems, cocoons, or human limbs. Their richly textured surfaces allude to an unknowable interior life".

Roberta Smith, Art Editor of the New York Times, in her review of  the current Mitchell-Innes & Nash exhibition at 534, West 26th Street in New York's Chelsea District writes:
"The yarn-wrapped objects of the outsider artist Judith Scott, whose subtly animalistic, totemic pieces have never looked better than they do here."

In a detailed critique of Make, the film by Scott Ogden and Malcolm Hearn the Huffington Post quotes the comment by art historian and pychotherapist
John MacGregor:

(http://outsiderart1.wordpress.com/2011/07/14/huffington-post-tells-of-documentary-about-outsider-art-make/)

Creative Growth's  Gallerie Impaire in Paris (gaela@galerieimpaire.com) has just announced:

"Objets Secrets Oct 11 - Dec 18, 2011    JUDITH SCOTT'S very first solo show in Paris at the Collège des Bernardins, 20 rue de Poissy, 5th Paris. "

" Cette installation est une invitation à découvrir l’énigme que constitue l’œuvre de l’artiste américaine Judith Scott, une représentante des plus remarquables de l’Art Brut, qui nous confronte à l’essentiel de l’humain.

Trisomique, sourde et muette, Judith Scott réalise des sculptures textiles qui constituent son unique moyen d’expression. Non satisfaite de ses essais artistiques sur papier, elle dérobe des objets (ventilateur, parapluie, magazines, etc.) au centre d’art dans lequel elle se trouve, puis les recouvre entièrement de fils de laine jusqu’à ce qu’ils disparaissent sous des cocons colorés. Découvrant la qualité et la force émanant de son travail, le centre accepte par la suite de lui fournir le matériel qu’elle désire afin qu’elle dissimule ses objets secrets.

Près d’une douzaine d’œuvres de l’artiste sont exposées pour la première fois à Paris et résonnent profondément avec les objets de la sculpture contemporaine, comme ceux de Louise Bourgeois ou de Tony Cragg par exemple. La liberté technique ainsi que la richesse psychologique et émotionnelle qui conduit la démarche de Judith Scott est exemplaire pour d’autres artistes de la scène actuelle, bien au-delà des questions troublantes du handicap.

Il s’agit de montrer ces sculptures en tant qu’objets magiques, puissants, montrer une pratique de la sculpture désinvolte à l’égard du tissage et des formes traditionnelles, faire honneur, au même titre que les autres artistes invités, à une démarche inédite. Cette forme nouvelle et très libre de sculpture textile traduit la part d’inventivité et de créativité de l’artiste qui, dès l’achèvement d’une œuvre, s’en désintéressait pour en débuter une nouvelle."

Home Page

EnTWINed
Judith's Story

Exhibitions

Books, articles and films

Judith's Artwork

Outsider Art

Down Syndrome

Fan Club

Selected Articles

Obituary

Web Author: Arachne Enterprises
LINKS: EnTWINed - Joyce Scott - Judith Scott – JSTAF