Head Shot

I am posting the press release that went out today for the LaCloche art show coming up locally this summer. Jon Butler asked me for a 'head shot' and a bio last week. I have never been happy about putting photographs of myself in front of the world, preferring to hide behind my work and my children. However, we are who we are I guess.

Here is the text that goes with the press release, and the artwork.

Featured Artist

Our 2009 Distinguished Artist is Judy Martin.

Judy maintains a working studio in downtown Little Current that looks out on the North Channel and the historic swing bridge. Her wide range of art media includes drawings and paintings on paper and canvas, fabric and paper collage, experimental work with wax and hand stitched large wall quilts.

Judy grew up on a farm in the Fort Frances area of Northwestern Ontario and moved to Manitoulin Island in 1993. Although she already has a fine arts degree from Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Judy embarked on a second one by distance from Middlesex University in the UK three years ago. Studying art at the university level informs her practice with art history and theory and gives her work a certain technical discipline.

Last summer the Gore Bay museum mounted ‘Red Thread’, Judy’s twenty-first solo exhibition. She has also participated in over sixty group exhibitions across Canada and the USA and her work is in several public collections including the Canada Council Art Bank.

Judy and her husband Ned live on Manitowaning Bay. Together they have raised four environmentally concerned young adults.

Her work can be seen year round at the Art Gallery of Sudbury’s art rental space as well as seasonally at the Perivale Gallery on Manitoulin. As well, Judy keeps an online journal where she publishes a piece of her art and writes about being an artist regularly. A link to this blog is on her web site. www.judithmartin.info

On July 3 between 4 and 6 p.m. there will be a Distinguished Artist workshop with Judy Martin. This workshop is open to all artists who have entered the La Cloche Art Show.

Watch for more information on the 2009 workshop.

p.s. The LaCloche exhibit attracts a huge amount of entries in so-called fine art media such as paintings in all mediums, photography with very few mixed media pieces. It's rather daring of the exhibition committee to invite me to be the distingusihed artist because of my unconventional mix of techniques. I hope that the artists who enter this year feel invited to be experimental, take risks, have fun.