JUDE POKORNY
CORPORATE AND PRIVATE COLLECTORS
SPACECOAST ART FESTIVAL, COCOA BEACH FL
AUBURN-CORD-DUESENBERG MUSEUM, INDIANA
MASS MUTUAL INSURANCE CO
SUNFEST COMMITTEE
ELION CONCRETE, MD
GENERAL MOTORS
NEW YORK STATE FAIR
KALAMAZOO, MI PUBLIC LIBRARY
DADE COUNTY YOUTH FAIR, MIAMI FL
MR OLIVIER GURTNER
MR JOHN ROLLS
MR ROBERT VAUGHN
R J COMMERFORD AND SONS, CT
DAVID AND DAWN GRUNWELL
SPECTRUM MORTGAGE GROUP, MIAMI FL
"PATHS I HAVE WALKED"
I have spent most of my life as an artist, and 100% of my time in this life with the wide-eyed curiousity of a 10 year old. I painted whatever captured my interest. Completely self-taught, my first love was landscape painting, aided by growing up in the lower Berkshires and spending twenty-two summers on the coast of Maine.
I watched streams fill to overflowing, plants break through the earth's warming soil, moss-covered rocks in a late summer shaded glen, the autumn splendor unique to our New England hills, and the winter white blanket that brings all to rest, only to watch the cycle begin again. I painted each season with the enthusiasm of a young heart.
In Maine, I listened to the waves crashing, a hint of the ocean's mood. I watched fog rolling in over lobster boats, observed sea smoke, each time in wonder of it all. The first paintings were of stormy skies, and brilliant sunshine, painting all that affected the land around me.
Life changes affected my choice of subject matter. I felt, always, that my journey as a painter came from the heart. I began to paint the people around me, the people I encountered; the young, then the young at heart. These were people I met by chance, by design, and people with life etched in the lines of face and body. For several years, I painted people in all walks of life.
This subject included my grandfather, Gustave, born in Austria. He had a love of machinery, and automobiles. I remembered how my father, grandfather and I spent months working on an old car they had just purchased, teaching me how to make rust and dents turn into chrome and shine. Once again, my focus changed. Rusty cars in fields, shiny cars restored. I traveled in search of the next painting. For twenty years, the gleam of the automotive world held my attention. Then, inexplicably, my focus changed once again.
Something in my life has remained constant. My love of finding a new trail or pathway, and not knowing where it will take me or where it will end has resurfaced. As a child, I wandered the thirty-two acres of my parent's woods. I brought wild dogwood trees from those woods and saplings from those trees to each place I have lived. I cherish those trees and the memories.
I now feel the need to paint the wandering lifestyle that has sustained me through the years. All of the paths that I've hiked, all of the bike trails that I've ridden, alone and with friends are now being called to my canvas. The feeling is strong to render those quiet places I have discovered and remembered. I have always wondered who has gone before or followed after me. I have wandered over forty states, and the further off the beaten path I go, the more vivid the memory. I hope to keep the passion alive in me and paint all that I have come to cherish. My commitment to painting has always developed from life and been completed in the heart. I paint with intense feeling for each subject I have come to explore. No changes are anticipated.
I wish to thank my many collectors for following my many pathways, and allowing me to wander through my life quietly capturing on canvas the passion that is my world.
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Jude Pokorny received a nursing degree with a emphasis on Art Therapy from Springfield School of Nursing in 1972 and worked as an art therapist for six years. She has worked as a full-time artist for the past 42 years. Her work can be found in many collections in the United States and Europe. She has received over 200 major awards throughout her career.
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COLLECTIONS
