JUDY STERLING

For twenty five years, Judy Sterling's artistic life was as a dancer, teacher, choreographer in the Minneapolis area - director of her own school, artist- in- residence in the public schools, member of the Hauser Dance Company, touring through the Midwest, Japan and Taiwan.  She still dances, teaching adult movement sessions (Moving from the Bones) and doing solo performances, but much of her creative energy has been shifted into working with tin and weathered wood, reflecting her new home, the high desert Southwest.

"I find that many of the artistic understandings of dance - use of line, space, playfulness, shape, dimension, light - are easily transferable from a movement art form to a visual one.  Even on the physical level, my body is still very much involved - cutting, punching, nailing, holding, bending - transferring its energy into the work."

As a dancer, Judy's artistic goal was that a piece spoke her personal message with relative clarity as well as had space for the observer to have their own unique experience.  It remains her goal as she explores designing the tin and partnering it with the ages messages inherent in the old wood.