Judy Nelson-Moore

I make things because it allows me to express something deeper than spoken words and rational thought. I express the experience of encountering the natural world as well as the inner psychology of life. My 40 year love-affair with clay has expanded to include mixed media, since I have broken out of what I called my "early functional period" and realized I could use anything I wanted in a sculpture.

When I go into the studio to work, I am concerned about the technical aspects of engineering the materials and the aesthetic shapes in space. I let the materials tell me what form they should take. Later, when I look at the pieces, they begin to take on stories that speak of future or past aspects of the life around me. The stories may be written down and become part of the piece. Other times, the stories are hinted at through the titles and left for the viewer to narrate for themselves.

I like to push the clay and other materials as far as I can, as if to stretch their potential (or maybe my own). The forms are a response to my emotions, reactions to people and activities that are in my thoughts at the time, but most of all to the land forms and natural world around me. Immersing myself in natural landscapes is healing and renewing. To me, earth landscapes are a counterpoint to the landscapes of our lives...the hills, valleys, grottoes, plains and persona of our minds. My pieces are the way I trace my journey through the landscapes of the mind.