Judy Nelson-Moore
About: Judy Nelson-Moore is an artist in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Having worked with clay in all forms of expression for over 45 years, she is current concentrating on sculpture using paper clay. Paper clay is clay to which paper pulp is added. This increases the dry strength of the clay making it possible to make forms that are not possible with regular clay. At a minimum, it allows one to break the rules of working with normal clay with respect to join methods, drying, firing temperatures, and other delights. Because the dry strength of paper clay is so hard, work may be fired or unfired. Once fired, the work retains the qualities of other fired ceramics.
Judy enjoys exploring mixed media additions during the ceramic construction process or after the firing. These additions might be fabric, paper collage, paint, or other mixed media.
Statement: My images are metaphors of inner self discovered through life events, visual illustrations of personal tales. We refer to different “worlds” … The art world, business world, civilized world, natural world, everyday reality. We fragment and compartmentalize our lives. My art is an expression of my dreams and visions as I attempt to balance and integrate these separate frames of reference. Recent work explores combinations of fired and unfired paper clay with other media, such as fabric and collage.
I grew up in Denver, a city girl. I had a great childhood, wonderful parents, an older brother. Mother was a painter and also made ceramics. My character was forged in Camp Fire Girls and 4-H. I graduated from Colorado State University with a degree in Humanities.
Over the years, I have studied with many wonderful clay artists, including James and Nan McKinnell. I realized that what I admired about many artists’ work was not the technical expertise, but the spirit and soul in their work. So I started to pursue a study of Jungian Psychology, studied creative imagery work with Edith Wallace and Steve Gallegos.
At the same time, I was working with many different companies around the country as a database software developer and implementation specialist. The combination of these experiences, plus a strong interest and affinity for primitive and indigenous art of many cultures, has helped to form the imagery and motivation for my sculpture.
