A studio index Vol. 01

Carolyn Judson

A working life in paint, paper, and clay · Works 1962–2026

“I have never been able to stop. Something in the kitchen, something on the table, something in the kiln — there is always one more drawing I owe to the morning.” — Carolyn Judson, studio note, March 2024
Black and white portrait of Carolyn Judson at her studio worktable, 2023.
Carolyn at the worktable, Dallas studio. PL. 0
PL. I / XXIV
Seated woman in a red blouse at a table with pears — colored pencil on paper, with a decorative leaf-and-fruit border.

A feature · 1987

Pears at the Window

A long, slow drawing — six pears on a worn table, a young woman seated, the late afternoon light. The decorative border was added last, almost as a frame, after the figure was already settled.

Year
c. 1986
Medium
Colored pencil on paper
Dimensions
22 × 30 in.
Status
Original available · prints from $85
Edition
Open · signed lower right
Inquire on the original Order a print

The Decades

02 · A working life, by chapter

  1. 1960s

    Art school in the dust of West Texas. A first show of charcoal studies at a community gallery; a marriage; a son.

    Read the chapter

  2. 1970s

    Wheel-thrown porcelain begins in a converted garage. Two solo shows in Dallas, the first review in Texas Arts Monthly — page 14, in colour.

    Read the chapter

  3. 1980s

    The oil paintings get bigger; the palette darkens. A residency in Marfa. A long, productive decade — over a hundred finished canvases.

    Read the chapter

  4. 1990s

    Colored pencil arrives as a quiet third practice — small, slow, domestic. The studio becomes a household landmark.

    Read the chapter

  5. 2000s

    Teaching, mentoring, a thousand cups of coffee with younger painters. Carolyn's own work turns inward: still lifes, family, the table.

    Read the chapter

  6. 2010s — 2020s

    The drawings become daily — small, deliberate, signed in the corner. A late-period clarity. The work has thinned, but not slowed.

    Read the chapter

03 · A selection from the catalogue

Selected Works

View all 200
Lilies in Teal — three orange lilies against a teal foliage ground, oil on canvas.

Lilies in Teal

$3,400
c. 2004 Oil on canvas 32 × 32 in. Print $85+
Old Tree, Late Spring — graphite portrait of a single large tree, signed.

Old Tree, Late Spring

$880
c. 1997 Graphite on paper 16 × 20 in. Print $65+
Two Cranes — two sandhill cranes in tall grass, colored pencil on paper.

Two Cranes

$720
c. 2002 Colored pencil on paper 12 × 16 in. Print $45+
Stream in the Pines — a forest stream with rocks and reflected light, oil on canvas.

Stream in the Pines

$4,200
c. 1994 Oil on canvas 30 × 24 in. Print $85+
Gull Rock — graphite rendering of a rocky headland with spruce, signed C. Judson.

Gull Rock

Sold
c. 1991 Graphite on paper 16 × 20 in. Original sold Print $65+
Kilimanjaro, Study — small herd of elephants on the savanna with the mountain beyond, oil on canvas.

Kilimanjaro, Study

$2,800
c. 1990 Oil on canvas 24 × 24 in. Print $85+

04 · A chapter on clay

From the Kiln

A second practice, begun in 1972 in a converted garage and never set aside. Each piece is wheel-thrown, glazed in the studio, and fired once.

Porcelain bowl with iron-red glaze, 1978.

Iron-red Bowl

1978 · Ø 8 in.

$380
Tall stoneware vase with celadon drip, 1985.

Tall Vase, Celadon Drip

1985 · 14 in. h.

$620
Squat pitcher in matte green glaze, 1993.

Squat Pitcher, Matte Green

1993 · 7 in. h.

$340
Ash-glazed lidded jar, 2002.

Lidded Jar, Ash Glaze

2002 · 9 in. h.

$480

See all 68 vessels →

05 · An afternoon with the artist

From the Studio

132 / 172

Carolyn was born in 1932 in a small town in West Texas, the kind of town where the wind makes its own arguments and the sky is, every afternoon, an event. She came to drawing the way a person comes to breath — with no instruction and no ceremony.

By the time she was twenty she was painting in oils; by the time she was forty she had a kiln in the garage; by the time she was sixty she had taught a generation of painters across two states. The work has never quite stopped, even now, in her ninety-fourth year, when a morning at the table with a sharp pencil is still the most ordinary, the most necessary thing she does.

This site is a small index of that long working life — a catalogue for the paintings, drawings, and pots that have left her studio, and an archive for the ones still inside it.

Read the full biography

06 · At the shop

Three Ways to Take Something Home

160 / 172
I / III

Originals

Paintings and drawings, each one signed and offered as a single piece. Shipped from the studio.

Browse the originals II / III

Prints

Archival prints of selected works on Hahnemühle paper, three sizes. Small prints signed by Carolyn from the studio.

Order a print III / III

Vessels

Wheel-thrown bowls, vases, and lidded jars from five decades of studio work. One of each.

Find a vessel