Island Life Magazine Ltd October/November 2008 | Page 24

life

INTERVIEW

then on I felt that was what I
was.”
Judith had been taught by
her mother, Roberta, to draw
before she started school, and
she is vocal about encouraging
children and adults alike to
discover their talents rather
than bogging them down with
teaching structured round
exams. “You take hormonal boys
and expect them to worry about
exams! They don’t do well, they
think they’re thick and you give
them a certificate to prove it!”
She adds: “People should be
told from the start what an
amazing miraculous gift this life
is.”
Her son James agrees. He is a
singer songwriter, and his easy
confidence and quick perception
is an obvious result of an
upbringing by parents critical
of convention. “Because Mum
was labelled an artist by a figure
in authority that’s how she saw
herself.”
Your eye can’t help wandering
back to those two old ladies,
their faces etched with the
prejudice and set ideas about
which Judith and James rebel.
“People judge each other about
the cultures they inherit, the
subcultures they hook into.
These are siblings presumably
at a funeral, they might not
have seen each other for years
– maybe one of them is a man
in drag about which the other
disapproves! It’s about the
parameters of judgement.”
And, to prove that life mimics
art, she recounts meeting an
American who introduced
himself by saying: “I’m an oil
man. What are you?” Being
defined by our role in life is
something she constantly
questions.
For someone with so much to
say, it must be hard to know
when a painting is finished. But
Judith has grown beyond trying
to put everything on the canvas.
“I like to leave space for the
viewer’s own imagination.”
http://www.judith-barton.com

24

Photo: Man in Blue - New Orleans Jazz Musician which was exhibited in the Threadneedle Figurative
Exhibition at the Mall Gallery, London September 2008.

www.wightfrog.com/islandlife