JACKSONVILLE — Local artist J.D. “Judith” Beale found her own kind of therapy while recuperating from what she calls a minor accident. She turned to her computer.
She has produced 200 digital drawings in a body of work she calls Children’s Character Tales, Series I and has installed a sampling of those drawings at First Security Bank in Clinton. The exhibit will remain on display until June 30.
“The computer became my friend due to limited mobility,” said Beale, who was a freelance illustrator for a few years while also working in family-owned insurance and real estate businesses.
“Each day I began working with pencil sketches that seemed to inevitably begin as doodles with an attitude. When I looked long enough and finally accepted the freedom that came from making doodles with an attitude, then the characters evolved quickly and easily. I believe looking long enough is the one activity indispensable in the process of experiencing art, as well as in making art,” she said.
“Many of the characters produced in this easy nonsequential free manner made me think of people I had known but not seen in many years,” she said. “Many reminded me of the personalities of some of the farm animals I played with while growing up.
“The doodles became lines that became shapes. The shapes became content. The content then became my own personal clues to arrange and rearrange in patterns and tales or stories of my own making.”
Beale said she produced these images from 2011 through 2015, first in pencil, then scanned into the computer and painted digitally through a software program.
She said the intent of the drawings is “to give the viewer clues from the personalities of the characters to use in creating stories of their own that can be used to convey concepts and values the viewer feels are important.”
She encourages the viewer “to make a memory for your children and grandchildren through writing or telling a story inspired by the personalities of these digital characters.”
Beale was born in Little Rock and graduated from Jacksonville High School. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock in 1972 with majors in art history and art. She received a Master of Fine Arts degree in 1992 from the University of Memphis, where she majored in studio arts with a concentration in painting.
Beale and her husband, Danny Beale, have two children, Jeff Beale of Memphis and Michelle Robertson of Bellevue, Washington; and two grandchildren, Conor and Ian Robertson.
Judith Beale has lived in Jacksonville, Memphis and Seattle. She moved back to Arkansas in 2005 when her husband retired.
Most recently, Beale has shown her work at the North Central Arkansas Art Gallery in Fairfield Bay and at the Thea Foundation Center in North Little Rock, where Beale’s work was included in the 2016 Delta des Refuses exhibit. Her work has been juried into regional and national group exhibits for the past 30 years.
Beale’s current artwork can be seen in the lobby of First Security Bank, 112 Volunteer’s Parkway in Clinton. Lobby hours are 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Fridays. The bank is closed on Saturday.