I view life as a constant process of change, a series of journeys; Inner journeys along outer reality, experiences in a constant process of becoming.

The outer reality is a lifetime in dual careers: An artist and a computer software consultant. I have been working for 30 years in computer software, developing Human Resource and Payroll systems and helping companies implement these systems. Simultaneously, I have been pursuing my parallel journey as a clay and mixed media artist.

I grew up in Denver, a city girl. 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 artist's 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.

The life journey is like my work in clay...you enter into the journey...you try to become the clay. I push the clay to the edge to try new experiences. The result is about what we encounter along the way and how it feels to change...feeling the edges. What better medium than clay to explore the process of change. Clay is the very substance produced by the earth's change processes. I ask the clay what it wants to do. I tell my fingers to follow the clay on its travels. When I turn around and look at the work, I see a mirror of my own inner journey. Clay is a malleable substance that can take any shape the maker desires. However, when I am working with the clay, it feels like the clay is engaging me in a dialogue about where it wants to go. When I get through, I step back and look at the piece...and see sites or people in my life. Entering into the change process, not trying to control it, not letting it control you, but interacting, observing, appreciating, nudging here, and getting pushed back there.

The edges...I like to explore the edges...the area where the change takes place...where the tree meets the sky, where the bodies touch, where the horizontal become the vertical, where the edge of clay meets the space around it. What is it like there on the edge? What are the shape, the taste, and the volume in space? Why is it the way it is...how did it get that way? What are the little crevices and bumps where the edges join together to make the journey?

Pieces in the spirit messenger series are like "demons" of change. Joseph Campbell talks about how "demonic" originally meant the dynamic aspects of life in Greek. Spirit messengers are portraits of inner change dynamics personified. What I believe is happening in my work at this time is that two basic ideas or interest are driving the images. One is the idea of all existence as change. The other is the idea of parallel lives. I like to call them "parallel lives", my dual careers in clay and computers. Like a character in a Piers Anthony novel, I step back and forth between two simultaneous frames of existence, each having a different set of rules. When I can get the perspective of a third view, the observer, where like the reader of the novel. I can see how the two frames are closely related. Of course they are related...I can't separate my mind into compartments and still be a wholly functioning person. The art helps me integrate these compartments. For example, the characters that appear as house persona, dream creatures or spirit messengers in the clay are usually related to some people or events I have encountered in the business world.

The inner home... The place where we go to seek a safe haven away from stresses of everyday. Or, where we retreat to privately explore our inner monsters. Where we play our inner movies. How is your inner house decorated? What images form the walls? What color scheme suits your home's purposes? What do you do when you are at home? What characters live in your house? While my husband and I were designing and building our house, I became very interested in the house as a psychological concept on several levels. Houses...how they look, what we put in them, how we "decorate" them becomes extremely important to some people because the house is a reflection of our personality. It is a place where we are able to be our best or our worst selves. On a deeper level, the house becomes an image of our inner self...a dream image, a place that houses all the different aspects of a single personality. The houses floating on clouds or pillows, walking on stilts, sitting on the mountain top, with rabbits in the door way, monsters coming out the window, roofs on fire.

All these pieces are visual illustrations of personal fairy tales. It is striking that we refer to different "worlds..." The art world, the business world, the civilized world, the natural world, the spiritual realm. We have historically fragmented and compartmentalized our lives. My art is my own attempt to balance and integrate these separate frames of reference...the spirit messengers carrying messages from the other frame. My sculptures are picture postcards from one frame to the other.

Judy Nelson-Moore, Santa Fe, 2002
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