Judy Caldwell has a passionate approach to the creation of her abstract artworks that combines a lively burst of colors and hues with textures and an emotional depth of movement and fluidity that captivates viewers.

Caldwell resurfaces her paintings with designs, overlaying the canvasses by using various found objects, such as rocks, pebbles and even mud, along with her fingers, bowl scrapers and spackling spreaders.

“I’ll use anything that moves paint. That gives energy to it. It doesn’t just lay flat,” she explains, pointing to a few designs made with a stone on a recent painting.

“I just let it happen. I honestly believe that one mark informs your next one.”

Caldwell is equally eclectic in her choice of mediums, using everything from crayons and pastels to acrylics.

“I use whatever draws me. It’s the artist’s discovery; what you can do with your hands and a piece of anything. That excites me,” explains Caldwell.

“That’s true about my paintings, too.”

Caldwell says that landscapes often draw her in, whether conjured by her imagination or inspired by old and new memories.

Caldwell was raised in Washington, D.C., where her mother worked for the CIA, her father was in the Foreign Service, and her stepfather was the White House correspondent for the New York Times.

While it may not have been your typical artist’s family tree, Caldwell says that her background also includes a “long line of farmers, artists and educators.”

She attributes the “honesty” of her art and “the sense of who she is” to the Quaker influence of her early years and believes that the happiness and carefree times during youthful explorations on her grandfather’s farm cemented her love of nature.

“I think I’ve always been an artist, but the older I got, the more I had to say and the deeper I was able to go,” says Caldwell.

Although Caldwell initially earned a Bachelor of Arts in art history at Boston University, she hadn’t pursued a career in the arts. Those interests weren’t rekindled until adulthood, after she underwent lung surgery.

“I had to learn how to breathe again,” she says, recalling the difficulties of post-surgery recuperation.

To try and improve her breathing, she tried singing in the church choir and playing the harmonica, and when those didn’t help, she remembered the advice of a third-grade teacher.

“I remember my art teacher saying that I had two things going for me: my posture and art.

The idea was to get out all that crud and really learn how to breathe again. I put it all in my paintings,” says Caldwell.

In this way, she explains, the healing process was intertwined body, mind and soul.

That revelation prompted Caldwell to return to school. She attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts certificate program and, after a brief stint in California, returned to Pennsylvania.

“I couldn’t get my fingers, my head, my heart in a direction that had any purpose to it at all.

And so, I ended up moving back to Philadelphia and going back to the Academy for two more years in a post-bacc [post-baccalaureate] program. That set me straight.”

A chance meeting at the Rancho La Puerta Resort in Mexico with someone from Vero Beach prompted her to visit our little seaside town, and it became one of the three locations she now paints from. In addition to Vero, she paints at studios in Spring Hills Farm, Pennsylvania, and Monhegan Island, Maine.

“All three places allow me to be more present and let my spirit be free,” says Caldwell. “The way I paint varies depending on where I am.”

For example, in Vero Beach, she takes advantage of the light that filters in through 11 skylights, several windows and sliding glass doors, changing the perspective of her artworks in progress by repeatedly moving them from the wall to the floor.

She credits her early Quaker influences for instilling the principle that pushes her to find the ‘light within’ and bring strength and purpose to her life.

“I paint for serenity, peace, quiet, and hearing my heartbeat. I would be nothing without painting. I would have no reason to get up in the morning,” says Caldwell.

Preferring not to title her paintings, she instead writes about the works’ inspiration along the edges of the canvas.

“I think a lot of people are interested in the story behind the art.”

For instance, a painting with bold hints of yellow was inspired by a goldfinch and chickadees.

“I saw my first goldfinch today – a dash of the brilliant sun. There was a chickadee convention going on while I took my morning hike. A melodic happy, chirping – so blessed with song and comfort by the sun. Thank you, Monhegan – you are loved and treasured.”

“My studio is where there are no rules. Every day, I get a chance to experience joy and unending playtime. My art continues to bring me that peace.”

Caldwell says her mentor Marianne Mitchell, a contemporary abstract artist, is “the one that has enabled me to put words to thoughts, to painting,” adding that her work is also influenced by the late German American artist Wolf Kahn and André Derain, part of the Fauvist movement.

Her art has been exhibited at prestigious galleries and museums in Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C., including the White House Christmas Collection.

Select works by Caldwell are currently on view at Cerulean Arts in Philadelphia.

Photos by Joshua Kodis