Meet Judyth Greenburgh | Conceptual / feral artivist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Judyth Greenburgh and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Judyth, can you share a quote or affirmation with us?
‘Be the change you’d like to see in the World’ Mahatma Gandhi. I like that this quote puts the accountability and power back in your own court. That if you need something to change – you have the power to do this yourself.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I like to reclaim things that have been abandoned. From discarded objects to people and places. I used to be an international Creative director in Advertising where every idea was considered and controlled. I became ‘feral’ and moved to a tiny mining town near Death Valley with no stores or cell service, in fact we just got fast internet last year. It was there I was inspired by the landscape and worked in a more spontaneous fashion moving from the ephemeral medium of video and photography to reclaiming found objects. I make kaleidoscopes out of found objects – from 2 inches long to whole room installations. Inyo County commissioned me to make a giant recycled kaleidoscope to teach the community and schools about recycling. From there I founded Goodent, a 501c3 who’s mission is to reclaim spaces, materials and a sense of wonder. We restored a local theater – the Forum in Lone Pine and offer ReUseArt workshops alongside the giant Kaleidoscope we call ‘Gladys’ I am also on the board of the Inyo Council for the Arts, teach workshops and paint murals – which I love as it takes me out of the digital realm.

One piece I’d like to share with you here is from a talk I did describing a life of a feral artist in the desert.

Life as a feral artist.

I wake up to the dog tapping on the door.
Stanley my dog is my personal trainer. I rise still in a fog of sleep – but urged by the race to beat the heat of the sun, my dog’s needs – and starting my day connecting with the landscape.

It’s takes discipline – but I do not look at the computer until I have returned from my walk. How one starts the day sets precedence to the rest of the day. I like the first thing to fill my head to be the air and sights & sounds of the desert.

Every day the walk is different – the light – the things I find. I’ll find a recurring theme and focus on collecting stuff with that shape. Sometimes it’s spirals – like bedsprings and can keys, other times its colored glass. A particular style of rusty can. I make sure I don’t alter the landscape with my gleanings.

When I get back I set them in front of my cabin – to be rummaged through later.

Feed the dog and the feral cat, get a coffee, and check emails and Internet. Until recently we had little bandwidth which made me choosy about what I do and see online & if I needed more bandwidth – I’d go into Lone Pine. But now I can lazily stream like the rest of the world.

Darwin has extreme temperatures so I work with the sun – it dictates what times I can work outside my studio and when I need to be inside away from the elements.

The rest of the day is a dance between working for others and myself.

* Creative consultant
* Art teacher
* Designer
* Artist.

How it is different being a feral artist rather than a commercial one.
1. You are in control of what you create.
a. You are as good as the client’s ability to accept creative work.
– Sometimes they’ve just had a bad day
– Other times they are double guessing their boss
– Usually they just don’t want to make waves.
b In advertising we would say you hatch an idea
• it rolls out as an egg
• it gets dropped
• and replaced with a lizard egg
• it gets tampered with
• They put back under you and out pops a monster – not the lovely fluffy chick you envisioned.
2. Your time is your own
3. You create out of self-expression vs. being a service.
4. You have no idea if it will be received well or not – and you shouldn’t care

5. You live for your art – not necessarily from your art.

6. As a commercial artist – you are creating for someone else- it’s a service. You use your skill to fulfill a purpose that has been agreed before.

If you try and make it your personal creative outlet – you will always be unfulfilled

As fr as my “Brand’ I like to call myself an ‘Artivist’ using art a s a change agent for good. In Advertising I promoted greed , the the cause of the problem. Now I work to be part of the solution.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Living so remote, it’s a minimum of 45 minute drive to reach a store. Saying that you can drive 20 minute to Panamint Springs resort in Death Valley to get some food and a beer. Our town is very special in that we are pot luck fanatics – we are always meeting up to swap stories or gossip and some home made food. We are actually in the center, between the highest mountain – Mount Whitney and the lowest spot Badwater so you can always find some temperature that will suit you. Depending on the weather – going West into Lone Pine to the Alabama Hills and checking out the film Museum and Whitney Portal, doing open mike at the Forum theater is wonderful and then heading East into Death Valley exploring Artist Pallet and catching the spring flowers in bloom is beautiful too. Personally just walking straight out of our door in any direction is an adventure – you discover abandoned mines and all sorts of rusty junk.

Further afield going to Tecopa Hot Springs (144 miles away!) they have great hot springs and a cool community of fellow artists.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I’d like to dedicate this shout out to my non profit team at Goodent for helping to manifest many of the projects we actualized. And my husband Pierre for putting up with the chaos – that is me.

Website: https://www.the-feral-artist.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/curlybirdjude/

Other: https://linktr.ee/curlybirdjude