Expressionist painter Jacqueline Rieder Hud moved from
southern California to an 1860 homestead in Gallatin
Gateway 17 years ago. Her grandmother homesteaded in
northern Montana, and restoring the ranch has felt natural
for her.
The 63-year-old artist had a difficult younger life, and has
focused on healing and transformation through Jungian
psychology, art, animal activism and finally, by moving
to Montana. Many of the images Rieder Hud paints come
from “psychic processing through dreams, and working on
the earth.”
She’s been on the board of directors at Bozeman’s Keystone
Conservation for 12 years and served as their Interim
executive director for two years. She lives on the Blue
Mountain Ranch with her husband, trial lawyer John Hud,
and spends her time moving horses and painting.
E.S.
[dcs_blockquote
author=”Jaqueline Rieder Hud” title=”excerpt from artist’s statement”]
“I feel a sense of union with animal spirits and
an admiration for their rhythmic interaction with
their environment, a rhythm that Man as Animal
has long forgotten. I long for the Human heart and
mind to engage the intrinsic value of wild places.
Sit in stillness… take a breath, reflect upon what
man as species has wrought upon Mother Earth.”
This quote from reflects my commitment to the natural
world. As the human population grows exponentially,
natural habitat is greatly diminished, and
the need for people to dialogue about balance and
living with the keystone predator species is ever
more apparent.
The Earth has an overarching system that used to
be in balance before people fragmented the habitat.
Keystone Conservation studies how this affects the
prey animals and the vegetation. In a less than
perfect world, we try to help people who live on the
landscape co-exist with predators.
When I discovered the Blue Mountain Ranch in
1993, I experienced a ‘shamanic descent’ into the
earth in the birthing pens in the big log barn. By
virtue of this experience I made a life choice to
haul my horses to Montana. I rescued donkeys
from the ’93 Malibu fires, and they were the first
to arrive. Several horses have lived with us and
passed. Now we have two great saddle horses, a
mule that was a gift in trade for a painting, and
an Andalusian horse who needed a home. It’s
inspirational crowd management on a daily basis.
Because I have worked with my own shadow for
decades and gone down into deep psychic pain,
often through dreams, I am open to the ‘Light
of Mercurius’ that can come through that dark
journey. The dream stuff is about balance between
psyche and body. It’s a new age thing. Anybody
who’s in it will get it, and nobody else gives a rat’s
ass.
A lot of people from my past lifetimes have called
me the past few days. I think my time is here. It’s
very strange and positive. At this stage in life my
sense of freedom is opening so fast. I wish I had
more time left, but that’s the way it is.
My current body of work at Creighton Block Gallery
tells my stories, enhanced by the documentary
film about my creative process, “Painting the
Wild.”
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width=”400″ framed=”true” font=”Times” color=”#3399CC” style=”normal”]
Jacqueline Reider Hud’s
art will show at
Creighton Block Gallery
in Big Sky, Aug. 27-
Sept. 13. She’ll be at the Gallery for a final reception on Thursday, Sept. 1 and Thursday, Sept. 8 (4:30 – 6:30 p.m.).
