Judy McLean is an artist "making up for lost time". After working in the insurance industry, she has returned to one of her earliest passions--making art.
Now in her mid-70s, Judy has been painting obsessively since she retired in 1992. "I always hoped to return to art someday", she says. It's just that "someday" took four decades.
Judy fondly recalls her first art lesson back when she was just 11, originally inspired by "a crush I'd had on a cute blond boy already enrolled." Although that particular relationship didn't work out, she did launch a love affair with art. Judy went on to attend the New England School of Art in Boston, where she specialized in Fashion Illustration.
Although she'd hoped to illustrate newspaper ads for department stores like Filenes, the fates had other plans and she returned to Goffstown,N.H., married, and began a business career---content but far from the creative world she so enjoyed.
Forty one years later, finding herself retired and widowed, Judy decided that it wasn't too late to fulfill her dream after all. So, this still spry senior rekindled her passion for art and began painting. She soon began receiving acclaim for her loose, colorful watercolors and started to build up a clientele.
While others her age are often seeking to slow down, Judy keeps striving to improve her painting skills. She's recently taught herself acrylics and produced a new body of work to explore the medium's range. As in all her artwork--and one might say, her life--Judy remains focused on the interplay of sun and shadow, skillfully showing how one enhances the other.
In addition to exhibiting at East Colony Fine Art Gallery in Manchester since 2002, Judy is a member of the New Hampshire Art Association and holds memberships in the Nashua Artists' Association and the Manchester Art Association. Besides local outdoor shows, she exhibits throughout the state and has recently become affliated with the Camden Falls Gallery in Camden, Me. Her work can be found in private collections throughout New England.