The tattooed teardrops falling from the corner of her right eye, however, illuminate a sad irony. Her tear duct has been destroyed by tumors, and now the only tears that fall from Hudson’s right eye are made of ink. regimen that has conspired with the meningitis to wear her down. Way down. But shades of Hudson’s former self show through. A multitude of tattoos hearken to a rebellious youth — an elaborate “Honky Tonk Angel” stamp spans her shoulder blades — and her hair is mussed but styled with frosted blonde wisps framing her sunken hazel eyes. A gauzy shirt hangs from her bony frame. Her bell-bottomed jeans drape stocking feet. A pink-polished toenail peeks through a hole in her right sock. That former self was a stunningly gorgeous creature, a comely punk-rock sprite. Hudson’s early modeling photographs emphasize her lost attributes — her chiseled jaw, her sensual pout, her piercing gaze. In truth, the gaze remains, weary but no less powerful. The tattooed teardrops falling from the corner of her right eye, however, illuminate a sad irony. Her tear duct has been destroyed by tumors, and now the only tears that fall from Hudson’s right eye are made of ink. But to dwell on her condition, to give in to bitterness, is counter-productive. Hudson is driven to create, to move into the future despite the many obstacles before her. Her quick wit and caustic sense of humor, her frequent tête-à-têtes with her mom, her liberal deployment of F-bombs, all keep her rooted in the real world. She brings the conversation back to her early arts education, when at 15 she was the youngest — and most talented — student in her class at North Carolina School of the Arts. There, she studied under a man who would become her mentor, a professor who was both revered and reviled by his students. Violent and prone to dramatic outbursts, Hudson’s teacher pushed her to her creative limit and won her heart. “Clyde Fowler is the ultimate gay — to the meanest,” says Hudson, an outspoken bisexual herself. “He wasn’t cutesy gay. He was meeean.” Hudson stretches “mean” with intent, clenching her teeth as she speaks. “He walked around with a stick and hit you on the back of the legs if you didn’t do a gesturally drawn foot.” With much effort, Hudson pushes herself up from her chair and ambles to a small space in the middle of the kitchen. There she establishes solid footing and forces her hunching shoulders upright, grabs an imaginary stick and adopts the posture of her former instructor. “In his class [he’d say], ‘If I see Cro-Magnon feet again, I’m gonna beat the fucking shit outta you!’ And of course, the [students] were all devoured.”
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1. An army of bottles litters a small table – 12 or 14 prescriptions – a regimen that has conspired with the meningitis to wear down Jordie Hudson. 2. Hudson appears in a photo from about 10 years ago. Photo: Provided by Jordie Hudson 3. Hudson works on a large canvas prepared with, among other items, a smashed beverage can, a mini Etch-A-Sketch, a Hello Kitty BandAid container, a classic image of Wonder Woman and a rubber duck. She named it “Once I Was a Punk Rocker.”
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Hudson then mellows and, a bit winded, intones, “He was an excellent teacher. He was incredible … He was my mentor. I was his star student.” For her work at NCSA, Hudson was awarded a scholarship to School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, more affectionately known as Boston’s Museum School. There, entering her 20s, she nurtured her raw talent, creating new forms and even getting into avant-garde performance art. “I wore a child’s christening gown,” Hudson says. “In the trash, I found red velvet shoes. And I took dead fish, and I surrounded myself and made people walk over me. And you know what else is really funny? They took this picture for a catalogue, because it was so beautiful. I had a cow bone, and I used real blood.” Some folks from the German underground saw the photograph and contacted her. Ever the proud offender of senses, Hudson says, “They loved me.”
THERE’S NO HIDING IT
“Y
ou don’t paint,” Hudson says with a grimace. “You have to draw to do anything, you see what I’m saying? Many people go in, and they paint — and they suck.” Hudson suggests — well, flat-out states — that you just don’t put brush to
canvas and expect miracles. You have to draw first. And you have to be good, very good, to make it work. Indeed, Hudson’s paintings, organized along the walls and in stacks of boxes in her St. Augustine apartment as she prepares for her upcoming show, are more akin to drawings than paintings. Working in both large- and small-scale formats, Hudson combines pop art, found-object assemblage and post-modernism in her pieces. Blackoutlined figures and deformed faces, accompanied by lines upon lines of scribbled text, occupy the canvases. Demented cartoony characters and soup cans, broken dolls and rubber ducks, juxtaposed in strange ways, confound the viewer. Drips of glue obscure parts of the work, streak the paint and give the pieces a haunting, cloudy quality. It’s all very weird — and nightmarishly wonderful. Hudson has built shrines, too. In her mom’s backyard, and in her own apartment, various religious and spiritual artifacts collude and commingle. Is this stuff happy and fun? Or is its subtext that of darkness and pain? “I am one of those people who likes awkwardness,” she says, as if answering both questions with a “yes.” If there is one piece that embodies Hudson’s affinity for awkwardness, it’s “Ugly Teddy Bear.” Painted over one of her mother’s pieces — a
veritable act of vandalism with which Allen still takes issue — “Ugly Teddy Bear” is just that: A big, roly-poly, ugly teddy bear. From the bear’s mouth, two dingy, half-smoked cigarette butts protrude at an awkward angle. Hudson says her mother hates it. “That was a painting my mom did,” Hudson says, “and I painted over it because the colors were horrific. It was green and this and that. She said, ‘Do you want this?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ ” A few layers of paint and a couple of smokes later, “Ugly Teddy Bear” was born. Hudson’s newest piece is less aggressive, more playful. A work in progress, it lies on the floor of her apartment, a large canvas prepared with, among other items, a smashed beverage can, a mini Etch-A-Sketch, a Hello Kitty Band-Aid container, a classic image of Wonder Woman and, yes, a rubber duck. It has remained untitled until this very moment. Sitting in the mid-morning sunlight that sweeps over the Matanzas Bay and into her living room/workspace, Hudson casually tosses off the piece’s name: “Once I Was a Punk Rocker.” Hinting at a work ethic that would exhaust even a healthy artist, Hudson says she is going to exhibit “as many [paintings] as I can” at her space:eight show, which means she likely won’t stop creating until the second the doors open. Her speed and prolificity are impressive,
NOVEMBER 27-DECEMBER 3, 2012 | FOLIOWEEKLY.com | 13