Meet Your Neighbor: Judy Collins

___

I have often wondered about a particular garage in our neighborhood, a two-story detached garage with what – an apartment? – on the upper floor. This week I was invited to see what goes on there and wow, what a place! It’s the art studio of an internationally known artist in architectural glass, our neighbor Judy Collins. — Interview by Bruce McDonald.

Bruce: I looked at your website before coming over and read that you have worked in the same location as an artist since 1978, starting as a leaded glass studio. Is this that original location, here in the neighborhood?  

Judy: Yes, I started up the studio the year our first child was born. On July 4 this year it will be fifty years since we moved in, so it was two years after that when I started the studio. 

So, you moved in on the Fourth of July in 1976 – the bicentennial day of the bicentennial year! That makes it easy to remember. And what a perfect find, this house with the specious studio for your art…  Oh no, we built this ourselves! The garage had a flat roof, and we built the studio above it. It was a huge job. Except for the brickwork, my husband Dale and I did it all. Plumbing, electrical, installing my big kiln… all with the proper permits. It was a big job. That roof beam, we hoisted it up with a Jeep. It lifted the Jeep.

Impressive. I bet you got pretty familiar with the building department over at City Hall. Not as much for this as for the basement and tunnel. We dug out a full basement under the house and a tunnel connecting it to the garage, to give me access to the studio at all hours and in all kinds of weather. Going to the City for permits, the response was along the lines of “A tunnel?  We don’t have tunnels in Lakewood!” Well, they learned. We do now. When we did all that digging Dale would take the loads of dirt down the street – there weren’t any other houses yet to the west of us – and dump them into one of the lots that needed fill dirt. 

Judy & Dale Collins at Lakewood Kaiser Permanente with glass installation. Photo by Heather Roe.

Your glass artworks are displayed all over the world, and here in your studio I can see that producing it is industrial-size work. I would think you’d have a factory in an industrial district. How did you end up here in Southern Gables – are you originally from Lakewood?  No, I grew up in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Sounds familiar, was that NASA… No, it was the AEC, atomic energy. It was known for science and technology during the Cold War years, lots of secret stuff. It seemed that everybody in town was a PhD. With so many highly-educated people there was a lot of emphasis on art and language programs. I’m sure that had an influence on my path in life. When I left to go to Ohio University I majored in graphic arts. It’s been a lifelong interest. 

That’s Tennessee and Ohio so far… what brought you to Colorado?  The West! The mountains, the outdoor lifestyle, fresh opportunities, the excitement of just being in the Western part of the country. Dale too – he grew up in Cleveland but wanted to go west for the same reasons as I did. It was the land of opportunity. He’s a doctor, and he started a medical practice here. When he retired in 2000, he came to work with me and started doing some of the things I couldn’t do alone, in running the business aspect and handling heavy pieces. I’ve had as many as eight employees, but now he and I have just one associate who does leading for me. I also have a close relationship with an artisan who uses an ancient glassblowing technique to make large sheets of art glass. He’s the only one in the U.S. who can still do that. 

It’s hard to imagine how that works, especially for some of these pieces that are so thick… Oh, those aren’t blown but rather they are castings. That’s an entirely different process, involving the large kiln in the corner. That was a later development in my career, and it’s more of a challenge. I’m hoping to do more of that type of art but on a smaller scale. I’m not retired, but I’m doing smaller pieces now, things people like to have in their homes rather than more of the big installations in public spaces. It’s been a great career. I’ve done over a thousand installations all over the country, and in Japan, France, The Bahamas, Saudi Arabia, and Bermuda. It’s been a career of hard work, very demanding. 

The artwork, with brilliant patterns and some with intricate drawings and paintings, is so striking. It’s no wonder that you have it placed in so many great locations. If you’re a Kaiser patient, you’ve seen my work. There’s another one in Lakewood too, in the Cultural Center. If you go to a show there you’ll see it on the way out. Going back to my art education, it has become a part of me. This is what I do. It’s how my brain works. 

So, you’re not exactly retiring, but scaling back. Even though I see a lot of art in process here, I expect you must have some leisure time. What do you do for that?  I’m a hiker. Love to hike, and  we have a cabin up in Marble. It’s a great location to enjoy the outdoors and clear the mind with good exercise. I used to ride bikes a lot, but not so much now. Walking around the neighborhood is relaxing and it’s nice to have the casual interactions with neighbors. Travel too; I love to travel. We always manage to include the national parks whenever we go just about anywhere in the country, and I have a love of overseas travel as well. 

It’s been such a great experience getting to meet you and see your studio. In closing, is there anything else we should let our readers know about you?  I’d like to say, thinking back to the value of my art education and all the good that has come from it, everybody should have a dream and be able to go for it.

Visiting your studio is such an eye-opener, seeing such world-class art being made right here. Do you often have visitors come and see how you do it?  I haven’t before, but now that I’m scaling back a little, I can consider it. I am thinking of having a couple of opportunities for small groups of people to come to see the studio and learn about not only my work but the process, techniques and chance to view the beautiful sheets of glass from around the world. It would be fun to have people see what goes into it and how it’s done. Increasing awareness of what’s around us can strike up a love for something that can last a lifetime. It would be great to think that showing someone what I do could lead them to a beautiful insight, art to treasure, or even inspire a new artist of the next generation.

For more of Judy’s work see her website, J. Gorsuch Collins Architectural Glass. Here are some of her art pieces made for residential settings.

Subscribe to get an email notice when our weekly articles are published.