I first met Jude Burkhauser in front of the elevator door in the Moore College of Art residence hall
in the spring of 1967. A woman I was dating introduced me to her: “This is my friend Judy Burkhauser.”
My recollection is that she said nothing. She just smiled and her blue eyes twinkled. She was
exceptionally pretty, with long, straight, auburn hair, seemingly just a shy college girl. Few who knew her then realized the vision, fortitude, perseverance, and sheer pushiness which lurked behind those azure eyes.
Jude was born in Trenton, New Jersey on September 10, 1947. She grew up in a blue collar family. Her
father worked at Roebling Steel by day and was a musician by night. Jude attended catholic schools where
she wore her uniform skirts subversively high above the knees.
Jude started at Moore College of Art in 1965. She chose art ed as a major, because everyone knows
“you can’t make a living doing art.” Friends and teachers from Moore influenced her throughout her life.
Her junior year at Moore was punctuated by an episode which might be described as a mental breakdown of
some sort. She was hospitalized for several months and diagnosed as schizophrenic. She recovered
completely and returned to school in the spring of ’69, having missed the first semester of her senior
year. Jude later described this episode to me as a spiritual experience. She felt that she had been
misunderstood by her family and mental health professionals and had been hospitalized against her will.
She identified strongly with Susanna Kaysen in her memoir, Girl Interrupted, in which Kaysen describes
her two years of involuntary mental hospitalization. Whatever the nature of this episode, it was never
repeated and Jude functioned normally throughout the rest of her life. I draw attention to it here
because it raises serious questions about the interrelationships between mental illness, spirituality,
and creativity which are relevant to Jude’s work.
For Jude, life was one, endless creative project. After she left Moore, she seemed to move from one
endeavor to another with the same ease with which a painter might move from one color to the next while
painting.
She worked for a couple of years in her field of training, art ed, teaching in the Hamilton Township
school district. She moved from there to a position as children’s librarian at Ewing EQ Library, where
she was known for her innovative projects.
Jude went to Rutgers University for a degree in library science (MLS 1976). As usual, she would not
accept the conventional way of doing things: “I decided I didn’t want to do a thesis that would collect
dust on some office shelf. So I did a project that involved getting an old abandoned rr (railroad)
station and restoring it and collecting the local history of the rr and creating a local history library
and museum. Then I lived in it for 6 years.”
Jude’s library years included several years as a library director and two years as a designer of
travelling exhibitions for the New Jersey State Library.
Always restless, Jude abandoned her library career and moved on to study and work as a fiber artist in
Europe (1981-83). She did an apprenticeship with some cottage tweed weavers in County Kerry, Ireland
and established a tapestry weaving studio to undertake commissioned works.
From 1983-86 she was director of the Cape May County Art League, continuing textile projects, and
receiving a Museum Studies Degree from New York University in 1987.
1987 to 1991 were Jude’s “Glasgow years”. She first went to the Glasgow School of Art in 1987 as a
Rotary Foundation Scholar for International Understanding. Her research led to the 1990 “Glasgow Girls”
project which she organized and curated while she was based in the Mackintosh School of Architecture as
a Research Scholar funded by the Scottish Arts Council. From 1987 to 1990 Jude curated a major
retrospective exhibition “Glasgow Girls: Women in Art and Design 1880-1920” presented in Glasgow
Museum and Art Gallery, Kelvingrove, as part of Glasgow’s celebration as Cultural Capital of Europe
in 1990. Jude edited the book of the exhibition, with contributions from 18 international scholars.
Jude also wrote many of the essays. It was named by The Observer (London) to its list of “Books
of the Year” for 1990. The project resulted in the establishment of an annual Glasgow Girls Research
Bursary established by Jude at Glasgow School of Art.
During this same period, Jude’s own work as a designer continued and she completed two commissions for
British Rail in Glasgow Central Station while a student at GSA. These were her 100 “rainbow” banners
installation in the roof trusses of “Highlanman’s Umbrella” concourse for the Glasgow Garden
Festival ’89 and a 26 meter mosaic commemorative wall for Glasgow’s Year as Cultural Capital of
Europe 1990.
The success of the Glasgow Girls show was a hard fought battle for Jude. Aside from getting funding
to go ahead with the project at all, she and her colleagues fought a battle with museum professionals
in order to get the exhibit shown in the Glasgow Museum as well as to preserve its character. When
the exhibit was finally shown, it was an overwhelming popular success. It was necessary to extend
its run. At this time, Jude and her colleagues were pushed out and the museum professionals took
over the show which they had boldly opposed.
Subsequently, Jude signed a contract with an American institution to bring the show to America. Jude
returned to the States to fulfill this contract but the institution failed to uphold its end and backed
out.
Bitter and disillusioned, Jude returned to her own art work. She began a series of works on Mexican
bark paper which she referred to as “bark drawings”. The works are the artistic culmination of her
career. They synthesize her life experience and her artistic and spiritual vision into a unified
artistic statement.
During this period, she became active in various breast cancer awareness groups, perhaps signifying an
awareness that her battle with this disease was not yet over. In 1996, after having been free from
cancer for 13 years, the breast cancer returned. This time, it was a more virulent strain. With
the help of the most aggressive treatment available, she was able to hold off for 2 more years.
Her declining health and treatment regimen seemed to neither help nor hinder her artistic work. She
moved forward with her bark drawings, with a sense of certainty, like a sea captain piloting a ship
through the sea at night toward an unknown destination, yet intuitively certain of each and every turn.
Jude passed away on September 19, 1998, nine days after her 51st birthday.