Painting Flowers, and Planting Them

The Inspiring Life and Art of Judy Stach

by Paul Soderberg

There are those who practice the Mama-Bear Approach to protecting the planet, attacking any perceived threat to the environment, using outrage and even violence in defense of beauty. But there is an alternative to that whole mindset, and it can be called the White-Buffalo Approach. The white buffalo was the Native American symbol of hope, rejuvenation, rebirth and world harmony, and those who take this approach, including artist Judy Stach, believe that this world is best protected and sustained through kindness, love, respect and appreciation. In her childhood, Judy Stach's father used to sing about the White Buffalo; today she is fast becoming nationally known for her unique ability to "sing" the same song with paint. And with flowers.

In Monmouth, New Jersey, at the Monmouth Beach Bath and Tennis Club, there was "too much blacktop." So, rather than screeching anti-asphalt slogans, she calmly set about planting hydrangeas all around the parking lot. Then she also put in perennial gardens, by which people at the club were calling her "The Flower Lady."

Of the men she admires greatly, John Chapman ranks third (following her husband Paul and Abraham Lincoln). Everyone has heard of John Chapman because he, like Judy, took the White-Buffalo Approach to life. Born in Leominster, Massachusetts, he grew up to be a polite, decent, and deeply religious man, and one day he decided to devote his life to making this world a better place for everyone. So in 1797, at age 23, he set off on a walking trip that lasted 48 years, until his death in 1845. Everywhere he went he planted apple trees, which is why we remember him today as Johnny Appleseed.

Planting fruit trees, and planting flowers like hydrangeas, is in fact painting. The canvas is the earth, the pigments are living things, the viewers are all those whose lives are enriched by the fruits and flowers, and the artists are those men and women who decide to make this world a better place for all of us. As this one remarkable artist from the Garden State, Judy Stach, puts it, "I love to see things grow. If I'm not painting, I'm gardening. But those activities are very much alike, in the sense that the greatest purpose of artworks is to relay a message of hope and peace, and to brighten the world for all who view them. In that sense, great paintings are just like flower gardens. "

In holding that sentiment, Judy Stach (who happens to share a birthday, February 25, with Pierre Auguste Renoir) is in powerful company. For example, Claude Monet once said, "I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers." For Paul Cézanne, flowers were the ultimate art critic: "When I judge art," he said, "I take my painting and put it next to a God-made object like a tree or flower. If it clashes, it is not art. "

Leonardo da Vinci himself first stated why Nature is such a perfect instructor for artists: "Human subtlety will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple or more direct than does Nature, because in her inventions, nothing is lacking and nothing is superfluous." That is exactly the definition of a great painting: nothing lacking, nothing superfluous.

In a very real sense, Judy did not just one day "become" an artist. Rather, she was always an artist, although at first she didn't realize it. "I always drew as a child. I wanted to be able to make people happy by drawing and painting pictures for them. My grandfather was a boat-builder and I grew up playing at his boat yard each weekend, and it was the most natural thing for me to then start to draw and paint boats. I never realized that I was painting plein-air. It was just natural. "

That natural urge to make people happy through creativity took several "non-art" expressions before she found her perfect tools, paints and brushes. For example, for a number of years she helped women paint their own faces: "I was hired by Ronald Lauder, and worked for Estee Lauder Cosmetics. I drove about 180 miles a day to service accounts in New Jersey, Connecticut, Maryland, Pennsylvania and New York." Thereafter, for seven years, she beautified people's private worlds, running her own interior-design firm, Inside Out Designs. And for many years she helped bring the beauty of caring to very special lives, through the Dyslexia Society of New York. All such experiences would normally never appear on an artist's resume; but they powerfully influenced Judy Stach as a person, forming the foundation for the profound understanding—of life, beauty, people and the natural world—which is the hallmark of her paintings today.

After those two great teachers, Life and Nature, she learned painting from true modern masters, including Richard Schmid, Timothy R. Thies, Charles Gruppe, David Leffel, Nancy Guzik, and Anthony Ventura. It was Ventura, in fact, who helped her focus her incredible artistic ability. "About 20 years ago," he remembers, "she happened to see some of my works in a gallery. It was like they released an incredible force in her, because she had a tremendous natural instinct for painting, which I saw as soon as she became a student. But it wasn't just her natural ability—it was also her determination and her enthusiasm. I've taught art for nearly 50 years, and she is probably the hardest worker of all the students I've ever had. And the more she learned, the more enthusiastic she became. We still paint together, and sometimes I find myself wishing I could somehow just tap into her energy and enthusiasm."

That enthusiasm, for being on Cloud Nine with art, remains at full-throttle even when Judy is 30,000 feet above the clouds: "I use the tray table as my work surface when I fly. With colored pencils I can block in most of a painting—if the weather isn't too turbulent."
Elva Brusca, owner of the Lambertville Gallery, one of the six art galleries that currently represent Stach, sees the end result of all that tremendous enthusiasm, in the reactions of viewers to her work: "People just love Judy's paintings, especially for their sense of calm, their serenity." Her former teacher Timothy R. Thies elaborates: "Judy's work is full of color and lively with impressionistic brushwork. Her love of water is evident, as is her passion for light that fills each work."

Behind that calmness, serenity and passion lies what can be called "the Judy Stach Secret," which is an artistic phrasing of the White-Buffalo Approach: The best art is a duet of the beauty of Nature and the touch of Mankind. "The ultimate challenge for an artist," she says, "and the greatest satisfaction, is to see and capture natural places and manmade objects that are existing together beautifully. It's like seeing Mankind and God in harmony."

Judy absolutely agrees with Auguste Rodin, who said, "The artist is the confidant of nature, flowers carry on dialogues with him through the graceful bending of their stems and the harmoniously tinted nuances of their blossoms. Every flower has a cordial word which nature directs towards him." But she also agrees with history's great peacemakers, who saw nobility and dignity in people. Thus, for example, people in her paintings are not intruders but participants in Nature. "My portraits are people in action, snapshots of them just being who they are and doing what they love. When I painted A Day at the Beach, I wanted to capture not just a lovely place but also a perfect moment when the moms were so beautiful doing what they do best: letting the children discover the joys of being kids. I truly, deeply love the natural world; but my favorite things include children playing and laughing, old couples holding hands, and people helping people."

Most art-lovers rank artists according to the greatness of their paintings, such that, for example, Caravaggio is considered a great artist, never mind how violent his temper was, and the fact that on May 29, 1606, he killed a man after a tennis match. But the truest fine artists are those who are also fine people, and Judy Stach is one of these. Anthony Ventura: "Beyond her enormous talent, Judy is, very simply, a great person." Elva Brusca seconds that sentiment: "Judy isn't just loved by collectors—she's also tremendously loved and admired by other artists because she's always so helpful and generous to everyone who loves art."
Judy's greatness of spirit has manifested itself in innumerable ways over the years. In 2004, for example, she and her husband Paul donated the Stach Family Chapel to the Riverview Medical Center, so that, she says, "Patients, patient families, doctors and nurses could have a quiet place to heal with spiritual medicine." But she is, as Ventura and Brusca say, especially generous to art-lovers, whom she sees not as competitors in the sometimes cutthroat painting business but as comrades in one of life's grandest adventures, the creation of artworks. "Artists are the luckiest people on Earth," she states emphatically, "And if they can make a living at what they love most, it is a joy everlasting."

As passionately as she has pursued that joy for herself, she has helped others attain it. She now teaches a painting class in her home, for example; and she teaches art through the Guild of Creative Art in Shrewsbury. Because there wasn't a plain-air painting group in her area, she founded one herself: the Plein Air Painters of the Jersey Coast. "We started out with only three of us. Then there were 18, and now we're more than 30. The support we've always showed each other is what has made our group so successful."

Plein air is French for outdoors, in the fresh air, and according to Judy it is the ultimate challenge: "Plein air is the most difficult type of art to do because nothing is controlled. Conditions like light and shadow, and noise, change constantly. It can rain. Your easel can suddenly blow over. Sunstroke is always a concern. You need bug spray. So plein-air painting isn't for sissies, that's for sure. But for that very reason, plein-air painting attracts truly dedicated artists, the ones with the most ingenuity, and brings out the best in all of us."
And what is "the best" in an artist? While she doesn't consider herself a philosopher, Stach does have a profound, almost mystical understanding of the role of artists—and their responsibility. "It was the great American sculptor Hiram Powers who coined the expression, 'the eye is the window of the soul.' I truly believe that. So in a very real sense, what you paint is not just what you saw but what touched your soul. And through your painting, you touch the soul of anyone who sees it with their eyes, the windows of their souls.

"That," she continues "is why I believe that an artist has a responsibility to her viewers, to present to them paintings that will be pleasing, inspiring and uplifting—that will make them joyful to be alive in this world so full of wonders. The worst thing you could ever do as an artist would be to paint a picture that made its viewers feel cheated, or depressed, or ambushed by negative, life-denying things.

"Life is precious and a constant wonder, and the luckiest people on Earth are those who realize that, because they don't waste it. That's why I consider artists to be the luckiest people on Earth: what we make—the world speaking to our soul, and then our soul speaking through paint to the souls of countless strangers—is a message of hope and gratitude."
And as Judy herself knows so well, conveying the beauty of the world also enriches the artist's life immeasurably: "I paint because it gives me life. I sometimes feel that there is another life that lives within me that only comes out when I'm in the process of painting. The most perfect time to paint is when the spirit moves me. And when it does, then my eyes are opened and beautiful things and colors can easily be seen at any time of day and in every season." Henri Matisse believed that too: "There are always flowers for those who want to see them."

Every artist has a "dream work," a painting or sculpture that will stand as his or her greatest achievement. For Judy Stach, fittingly, her dream work is a painting she has not yet done but has already titled: "Its title is Through the Eyes of God, and my dream is for that one painting to inspire perfect peace in anyone who views it. I don't yet know what will be in that painting. It could be a raindrop, or a sailboat. It might be a flower, or a seascape. Or it could be that white buffalo that we all dream of someday finding."

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