There is a singleness of purpose to Judy Haas,
evident in the way she looks at you, in the way she lives, and the style in
which she paints. Whether you're conversing under her steady gaze, visiting at
her self-constructed log home, or experiencing the movement and color of one of
her trout paintings, the effect that Judy generates is immediate and
profound.
Haas is a native of Aspen, Colorado so nature has been
a constant companion, much the same as her art. When Judy was a young girl, she
would accompany her father to high mountain lakes for a weekend of camping and
fly-fishing. As an angler, Judy spends time on the river to study the pattern
and color of trout, then releases them back to the natural
environs.
Self-taught, Judy has been painting all her life. She
says matter-of-factly, "It is something one is born with and has to do." On her
worktable are her tools of trade: lumps of vibrant, almost other-worldly color -
her unique homemade pastels. These unforgettable pigments jump from the page
like trout jump at a fly. Naturalists applaud the realism of her color
selection, while art lovers simply bask in the kaleidoscope of
hues.
The first pastel of trout was created for her parents
and exhibited in 1985 at a one-woman show in Aspen, which sold out on opening
night. This original piece was seen and a second commissioned by the Ambassador
to Denmark. Recent exhibitions include the American Museum of Fly Fishing,
Meredith Long Gallery, and the New York Art Expo in 1990 and 1991. In November
of 1993, William Beadleston, Inc. sponsored her most prestigious, one-woman show
in London.
A broader audience will now have the opportunity to
share her talent and vision. Most recently, her work is being reproduced by
Patagonia on a summer shirt, and the Nature Company offers a print of one
extraordinary work in their stores. The distinctive pastels, with their balance
of realism and abstraction, exhibit a sense of movement and clarity of color
unlike anything normally associated with the medium. Perhaps due to that fierce
sense of purpose, the demand and interest in her pastels is rising like the
river during spring run-off.
