Judith Scott is an artist with a life story fit for the movies.

In fact, French filmmaker Philippe Lespinasse made a documentary about her extraordinary life and fascinating artwork. Scott was born on May Day in 1943, minutes apart from her twin sister, Joyce. The twins were inseparable: playing, exploring, even sleeping in the same bed for the first handful of years. With such a strong bond, the separation that occurred between Judith and Joyce was difficult.

At age 7, Judith was institutionalized. She was diagnosed with Down syndrome and deemed “ineducable” due to her inability to speak. It was only in adulthood when people would realize that Judith did not learn to speak because she was deaf, due to a bout of Scarlet Fever in infancy.

In 1985, Joyce, in a moment she called an epiphany, fought to become her sister’s legal guardian. The next year, she moved Judith to California, where the sisters would remain together for the duration of Judith’s life.

Once in California, Joyce enrolled Judith in art classes at Creative Growth Art Center in Oakland, one of the first organizations in the world to provide studio space for artists with disabilities. For 2 years, Judith showed no interest in artmaking...until she was introduced to fiber art and something clicked. She worked with colorful yarn, thread, lace, even paper towels, and wrapped everything she could get her hands on: sticks, magazines, bicycle wheels, and even a shopping cart! She was extraordinarily focused, but once an object was finished ,Judith would brush her hands together and push the piece away, never to revise it again. She mummified and hid objects, and has since been compared to a spider, a mother swaddling a child, or someone trying to reclaim something missing by tying objects together so as not to let them separate - a theory directly tied to her early childhood experience of being separated from her twin, and the rest of her family. 

Though she never spoke with words, Scott’s color choices, textures, and the clear emotional ties (haha, puns) that she has to her art communicate in their own language. These objects tell a story of creativity and discovery. Today, Scott’s work is in the collection of such major international institutions as the Brooklyn Museum, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the American Folk Art Museum, and the Museum of Everything. Though she may still be referred to as an “Outsider Artist,” a debated term for self-taught artists with no connection to the established art world, she sure has quite the resume.