It was a crisp early autumn day that I drove to Judy Pfaff’s home and studios near Tivoli. She lives and works in a series of barns and outbuildings that still have the rough-and-tumble sense of a working farm, with areas that have the cool geometric feel of a setting for contemporary art. Upon hearing me near the door, two big dogs barked and wagged their tails at the same time, jumping all over me once the door opened. At seventy-four, Judy has the air of a woman at least fifteen years younger, and I’m immediately put at ease while she yells orders to her dogs but laughs as they continue to lurch towards me.
Though she’s won a MacArthur Foundation grant, Judy is a woman with absolutely no pretension. She has the sharply drawn lines of an artist who has persisted in her work for five decades, despite the wavering tastes of the art world.
James Barron: I’m looking around your studio, and there are disparate materials everywhere. To some it might look like a junkyard. How do you know what to keep?
Judy Pfaff: It’s funny, because some of my assistants want to throw everything away. I say to them, ‘No, don’t throw that away!’ I have stories for everything in my studio. When I’m in a quandary with a piece and don’t know where to go, I’ll walk outside and then return and see the answer right in front of me. I’ve always noticed that, if I need something, all I have to do is stop and look around and the answer has always been there.
JB But isn’t that the magic of making art, when the world speaks to you?
JP I think so. I like having a range of materials — something icky, something beautiful, something store-bought, something that just dropped out of a tree. When it has the right mix, maybe it’s like cooking or writing. One thing is what it is but paired with another thing it makes a story.
