Jim Thomas ran a gallery on Prince Street about ten years ago. It was a beautiful space for art. One of the more memorable shows we saw there was Judd Williams. I feel in love with his charcoal drawings. Judd taught painting, printmaking, sculpture and figure drawing at Rochester Institute of Technology and Jim taught there as well. The Axom Gallery on Anderson, run by Rick and Robin Muto with their daughter Margot is one of the finest spaces for art in the city now and and they are currently featuring Judd Williams. Boo Poulin, a student of Judd’s, and I were drooling over these charcoal and granite drawings at the opening, wondering how Judd got such even tones of grey and Boo went directly to the source. Judd explained how he masked areas and layers graphite by rubbing and manipulating and then drawing with rich black on the grey. They are really wondrous.
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