The Artist's Inspiration to Conceptualization

Judith uses different experiences, inspirations, visions and memories from unique and personal experiences to create her felt artforms. This "Bienvenidos" felt piece (to the right, above) hangs in San Diego, California and was inspired from a photograph her son took while on vacation in Baja California, Mexico. He has been an avid amateur photographer for over 20 years and some of his favorite and most intriguing pieces involve night photography without a flash.

The photo (left) was taken on the first night of his vacation. "Bienvenidos" translated from Spanish to English means "Welcome." Feeling wonderful to be on vacation in a foreign country yet close to home, the sign was a very inspiring vision to him. The photograph was taken at the front entrance of the Rosarito Beach Hotel, which is about 20 miles south of the San Diego/Tijuana border crossing, the busiest port of entry in the world.

When Judith saw the photograph, it brought her colorful and abstract inspiration, and she combined three elements - felting, sewing and using small objects attached to the bottom of the felt (detailed in THIS closeup photograph). The lettering of the piece was done in yarn and sewed to the piece.

The piece is especially unique in that two family members had separate interpretation and inspiration of the same image using two mediums - photography and felting - to both produce an artform.