Artist Statement

I am interested in recording a more primitive and primal emotion. Ancient primitive art strikes a hidden chord each time I see it. To me ancient primitive art is a visual that transports all of us to a time when our surface instincts were foremost in our existence. Mid-fire stoneware painted with underglazes, gloss glaze and oxides are my mediums of choice. The technique of hand building enables this expression. I feel it is important to incorporate a human base level and an acknowledgement of a modern reality mingled with an element of whimsy, a quirk, and an unexpected left turn. Simple elements such as screws, nails, wire, construction staples and adornments are curiosities to me. Hardware literally holds structural society together. Adornments add beauty to the ordinary. Taken out of context they make for interesting details.

Pushing further I asked how can I relay and incorporate my inner drawings that are colorfully naïve with organic ceramic pieces and capture a moment?

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Artist Biography

Judy DeSimone was born in Havertown, Pennsylvania a suburb of Philadelphia. As a child, Judy was fascinated by her father’s carpentry tools, sawing, hammering, filing and sanding scrap wood. Weekend trips to the local hardware store were such enjoyment, as she dug through the bins of nails and screws. Her mother was a sharp dresser, accessorizing outfits with necklaces, bracelets, broaches, and pins. To dig through her jewelry boxes was great amusement. However, like most children of her generation the outdoors was where kids spent their time, roaming. These categories helped lay the foundation for the hardware, baubles and textures which would later be used in her ceramics.

Judy’s Catholic school educational curriculum lacked the subject of art, leaving her to her own devices to experiment with crayons, watercolors and clay, she would scrape from the banks of the local creek. Other artistic mediums were unknown. At 16, she enrolled in her first art class on Saturday mornings at Moore College of Art and Design’s Young Peoples Workshop. Moore would be her college of choice, where she studied art education. The college’s art history and English classes expanded her knowledge and imagination to inspire and ponder well beyond her previous dreams. In her junior year of college, a detour to a southern California art college introduced her to the world of craft as fine art. This artistic genre was quietly emerging on the East Coast during her college years.

With a bachelor of science in art education, Judy pursued a career and vocation as a middle school art educator at the public schools in Coatesville, Pennsylvania. As a young adult, this career path relocated her to West Chester, Pennsylvania. It was in this middle school classroom where she taught herself various ceramic hand building techniques, leading to a love of the medium. This enthusiasm was shared yearly with her middle school students. For thirty years, Judy’s personal ceramic work comprised of tedious personal diary scenes, animals, flowers and leaves done in bas relief. The expression of realism was the predominant goal.

With public school retirement came a shedding of the old and a blossoming of the new to the quick, spontaneous, “why not art” that she has pursued for several years. The “why not” view was reinforced in her retirement job, teaching art to kindergarten through eighth graders at her local Catholic school. The inhibitions of the younger students’ ideas and techniques reinforces Judy’s personal philosophy of, why not, which she applies to her ceramics. What luck to have had three-hundred-part time muses at one’s disposal.

Judy’s artistic goal is to strive for a quirkiness in shape, texture, color and a feeling of the primitive that will bend to her whims of the present moment.

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Education

Moore College of Art, Philadelphia, PA

University of the Arts, Philadelphia, PA

West Chester University, West Chester, PA

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Professional Experience

Retired Art Teacher of thirty-nine years in the public and Catholic schools grades kindergarten through 10th grade

Moore College of Art and Design, Philadelphia, PA Young Artist Workshop, Teacher

Chester County Art Association, West Chester, PA
Youth Summer Camp, Teacher

Exhibitions

2020
Off Center, International Ceramic Competition, Blue Line Arts, Roseville, CA

Radnor Fall Craft Fair, Radnor, PA

Chester County Studio Tour, West Chester, PA

47th Annual Rehoboth Art League Outdoor Fine Art and Fine Craft Show, Rehoboth, DE

Chester County Art Association, West Chester, PA

2019
Open House, West Chester, PA

Sugarloaf Craft Fair, Oaks, PA

Rittenhouse Craft Show Fall, Philadelphia, PA

The Chester County Studio Tour, West Chester, PA

The Art Trust, West Chester, PA

Chester County Art Association, West Chester, PA

The 5 Senses, West Chester, PA

2018
Hidden Gardens 2018, West Chester, PA

Montgomery County 2018 Studio Tour, Conshohocken, PA

Chester County 2018 Studio Tour, Exton, PA

Gallery Winery Pop-Up Art Show, Unionville, PA

West Chester Borough Spring Gallery, West Chester, PA

ArtSceneToday.com

Paragon Framing and Art, Phoenixville, PA

Chester County Art Association, West Chester, PA

2017
Pennsylvania Guild Store, Lancaster, PA

Locust Lane Brewery, Malvern, PA

Chester County Art Association, West Chester, PA

Gryphon Café, Wayne, PA

The Chase Art Show Wilmington, DE

West Chester Gallery Walk, West Chester, PA

Clay Days, West Chester, PA

Unionville Art Gala, Unionville, PA

2016
The Gallery Walk, West Chester, PA

The Unionville Art Gala, Unionville, PA

Radley Run Country Club, West Chester, PA

Great Valley Penn State Campus, Great Valley, PA

River Arts Gallery, Chestertown, MD

Roots Café, West Chester, PA

Clay Days, West Chester, PA

Chester County Art Association, West Chester, PA

2015
The West Chester Gallery Walk, Chester County Art Association, West Chester, PA

The Unionville Art Gala, Radley, PA

Run Art Show, Maritime Art Gallery, Norwalk, CT

Clay Days, West Chester, PA

2014
West Chester Art Association, West Chester, PA

The Daylesford Abbey Art Show, Malvern, PA,

Clay Days, West Chester, PA

The Ocean City Craft Fair, Ocean City, NJ

The Moore College of Art and Design Store, Philadelphia, PA

2013
Chester County Art Association, West Chester, PA

Moore College of Art and Design Store, Philadelphia, PA

Moore College of Art and Design Alumni Show, Philadelphia, PA

The Hankin Library Craft Fair, Eagle, PA

The Skippack Craft Fair, Skippack, PA