Take the mystery out of art history
 
Brandon - "Golden Rule" Realistic image of sun on the horizon in Ink, charcoal and pastel on printmaking paper
 
 

Judith Brandon • American: B: 1963

Golden Rule 2013 • Ink, Charcoal and Pastel on Incised Printmaking Paper 49” x 80-1/2”

Judith Brandon was a born observer with an eye for the emotional power of nature. As a child she seldom talked, but often drew pictures, fascinated by the attention adults paid to her childhood drawings. Art became her way of engaging people and sharing experiences with them. It’s a pattern that has lasted long after she finally found her voice.

Somewhere along the journey from Chagrin Falls to her Rocky River studio, with a world of travel in between, Judith became fascinated by weather. But not just spring thunderstorms and winter snow. She found nature an endlessly fascinating place filled with weirdness.

As her interest in odd weather happenings grew, an even stranger thing started to happen. Friends began sending her photographs of weird weather occurrences. “There’s nothing greater than someone sending me something. It says ‘I thought of you.’”

 For a woman who lives life intensely, strange weather phenomena, like haboobs in the desert, became a way to express her emotions and start conversations with her audience.

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As Judy Brandon grew from girl to woman, her emotions apparently grew larger than her physical body. Barely 5 ft. tall, she began working on giant sheets of paper, looking for scenes she could (metaphorically) walk into and become lost. The result is “an unconscious union between emotion, imagination and nature.”

So it happened that on a particularly emotional day in 2013, she walked into her Rocky River studio at the back of a small metalworking plant owned by a friend. The high walls allowed her to work on larger-than-her-life sheets of paper, although she often has to turn them upside down to reach the tops. 

On that day, with her father and mother gone, she followed her emotions from storm-cloud to column-of-light. Phrases became part of the painting, scribed into the paper. “Quit waiting for others.” “The other side is love.” Some are well-hidden. Others easily seen.

At long last, the girl who silently watched her family’s basement flood with every spring rain, found her voice in her art. Stop by the Canton Museum of Art and see what her painting has to say.

Canton Museum of Art Permanent Collection • Gift of the Artist, 2017.1

 
 

4 Ways to Sound Smart When Viewing at The Canton Museum of Art

1.
“Small in stature, she likes to paint big. Some of her works are so large, she had to turn them upside down to work on the upper portions.”

2.
“Her work almost always views the forces of nature as a way to express emotion and unleash imagination.”

3.
“She views her art as a way to imprint something on paper and have others retrieve it in different ways. ‘Any reaction is better than none at all.’ So, what do you think?”

4.
“She once was thrown out of her Little Italy apartment for painting her walls black. Apparently the landlady liked to look on the sunny side of life.”

 
 

Brandon Timeline. Scroll over images to see timeline.