Judith E. Graham

4/16/1946 – 8/7/2025

Our beloved Judith E. Graham passed Thursday August 7th at 6:28 PM as her mother moon rose up and peaked through the clouds. We will forever call the August full moon: Judy’s moon. Judy is survived by her daughter Quai J Barker Gurule (Geoff E Worcester), grandson Bradley T Gurule, Blake A. Gurule, granddaughter Brooklyn E Worcester, and her beloved John Richardson who now has her darling dog Asher. Judy will always be remembered as a force of strength, love, loyalty, and beauty. She loved the town of Silverton and its community and her home at the Wingate house. She found sanctuary and peace in the mountains and clouds around us. Cokie and Judy's two sisters and nieces were there. Her sister Patti was there in final breath. Judy Graham was a well-known local artist who created canvas pieces that captured the remote and rugged San Juan Mountain range in all of its beauty, and her art still hangs in public spaces for all to be inspired by. The family would like to share with you some of Judy’s words from her artist biography, 'The concept of a sense of place has been examined by many cultures over millennia. A place can seem so powerful that it appears as though the place itself has its own vitality. It is in this spirit that I created a series of paintings inspired by Velocity Basin near Silverton Co.

For 24 years I have lived and painted the geological features which dominate Southwestern Colorado especially the shapes and colors of the Rio Grande River drainage in the San Juan Mountains. My paintings communicate a deep connection with place and how one exists and moves about in wild places particularly those on the tundra. Above Timberline sensed in my paintings is the relationship between notions of connectedness and place. The visual detail of place can metaphorically suggest something other than itself, a place, or the representation thereof can be a veil over what we yearn to understand, a portal. My paintings are about the vastness, purity, and beauty of remote places and are meant to be uplifting. I have spent a lifetime in pursuit of the most genuine distillation of ideas as they can be expressed in the visual language of color and shape with paint on canvas.”

A memorial for Judith E. Graham will be announced at a later date.