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This story was featured in the August 2018 issue of Southwest Art magazine. Enjoy this excerpt.
…”[Peggy Judy’s] talent earned recognition early on. During her sophomore year, as seniors in her department were submitting their portfolios to Hallmark for coveted jobs illustrating greeting cards, one of her professors submitted Judy’s portfolio as well. She wound up being the only student invited to the company’s Kansas City headquarters for a round of interviews, which culminated in a one-on-one meeting with chairman Don Hall. As Judy tells it, “He said to me, ‘Well, you have the job if you want it. But if you were my daughter, I would tell you to get your butt back in school.’ And so I did.”
But it was more than just Hall’s admonition that fueled Judy’s desire to complete her studies. “I loved art school. My professors were wonderful, and some of them are now my friends,” she says. She pauses, thinking back to her shyness. “I just wish I could have asked them more questions.”
Still, that reticence didn’t keep her from seeking and finding work when she graduated in 1982, even as a recession was hitting the country. She began doing freelance illustration work, mostly for companies in downtown Denver; she drove into the city from her parents’ home, where she continued to live, staying close to the family’s horses she had loved and ridden since childhood. In her spare time, she painted watercolor landscapes, which she sold at weekend art fairs around greater Denver. “That was a really great experience for me,” she says, not only for the painting practice and the extra income but also because, Judy adds with a laugh, “I did have to learn to speak to people.”
That skill may have come in handy during the autumn of 1987, when Lin Judy, a young equine veterinarian who’d recently graduated from Kansas State University, came out to the family’s house to perform an insurance examination on one of the horses. Lin was shy, too, but he and Peggy struck up a conversation. He proposed 11 days later, and they married two months after that, “as soon as the church had an open spot,” Judy says. Last January, the couple celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary.
Judy dedicated herself to newlywed life, to helping grow and manage the independent veterinary practice Lin soon launched, and then to raising their two children: son Ethan, now 26, a senior at Colorado School of Mines following a stint in the Marine Corps; and daughter Josie, 23, who earned a degree at the University of Colorado’s Leeds School of Business and now works in Denver at a company dedicated to helping entrepreneurs succeed.
Once their daughter was off at college, says Judy, “I had a little bit of time, and I thought I would go to the art store, buy some paints, and dabble a bit.” She began painting, “mostly horses, because I certainly knew them.” To her surprise, after all those years away from painting, she found creating art “addicting.” Soon she had assembled a body of works, “and Lin said, ‘You should go to a gallery.’” So she did some online research and settled on her first prospect, the well-respected Ann Korologos Gallery in Basalt, CO, near Aspen, which specializes in contemporary western art and artists. She emailed them a few digital images and a few weeks later got a phone call inviting her to bring in some pieces…” Read Full Article
Please join Peggy Judy on Saturday, August 25th, 2018 from 10:30 to Noon at Ann Korologos Gallery for an intimate Artist Coffee Talk. For the full article in the August 2018 edition of Southwest Art, purchase the August 2018 Print Issue or view the article online. Learn more about Peggy Judy on her artist page or by visiting Ann Korologos Gallery at 211 Midland Avenue in Basalt, Colorado.
