Meet Judi Lightfield | Artist and poet

We had the good fortune of connecting with Judi Lightfield and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Judi, we’d love to hear about how you approach risk and risk-taking
Every blank canvas is a risk or an opportunity. I don’t have an image in mind when I start. There may be a feeling, a mood, or an idea. It starts with broad strokes and choices of color. Color is the riskiest element. Because I work in oils color and they dry slowly they can turn to mud inside of 90 seconds. Objects appear and disappear. The sky becomes a beach, a valley becomes a hill. I wait around until I see something that I like, the way the colors fuse together, the way the illusion of space appears. Often times I get stuck I’m not seeing anything I like. Then every move becomes a risk -failure or clarity. That’s when I start experimenting. Sometimes I think I’ll never do another good painting. For every good one I do I fail 47 times or maybe 48. I’ve been doing this all my life so you figure I’d have some confidence by now. Nope so every time I pick up a brush to put some paint on a board I’m risking failure.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
After doing the paintings for Sarah I knew I would never do anything that good again. I had to reinvent myself. It took years. I finally settled on an idea. Everybody lives in their own bubble. I’m sure you’ve heard that before but what does it look like. I experimented with watercolors but the figures were stiff. They started out in a cosmic background. I like the incongruent idea of bubbles existing in outer space. Now the negative shape is an abstracted landscape, a horizon line, sky, Earth, mountains, rivers. I rewrote the first seven days of the Genesis story. There’s a video of it on YouTube. The truth is I probably go do something else if I knew how.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
I’d start out in Rome. Probably April and May. It’s not too hot it’s not too crowded. Rome is the city of the baroque era. I definitely go to the Borghese gallery. There’s a sculpture by Giovanni Bernini called Apollo and Daphne. Your body’s twist and turn the drapery folds and unfolds it’s hard to believe he carved it out of marble. The story goes that Apollo fell in love with Daphne but she didn’t want to have anything to do with him He chased her all around the world and just as he was getting close she called out to her father and he turned her into a laurel tree. The one detail that astonishes made is Apollo’s look in his eyes. He’s already looking past her to the next conquest. We’d spend time wondering the streets because you can’t go far without seeing something extraordinary in architecture. We eat in a small restaurant that looks like the locals eat there. It’s not just Pizza and pasta, their salads and everything comes with fennel. We drink sambuca. And sleep like babies.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I had a beautiful life until February 6th 2005. I went to look for my daughter, Sarah, at her apartment. When I found her she was dead on the floor. She had had a allergic reaction to a prescription medication. She called 911 but was incoherent so they didn’t look for her. A year after she died I held two events and raised enough money to open the Sarah McConnell fund at the Denver foundation. I made five paintings and 12 mixed media paper pieces. It’s the best work I’ve ever done.

Website: www.judilightfield.com

Facebook: Judi Lightfield

Youtube: Search for Genesis and Judi lightfield