{"id":863,"date":"2026-02-23T21:52:40","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T21:52:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/artisunity.net\/talkart\/?page_id=863"},"modified":"2026-02-24T17:36:23","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T17:36:23","slug":"judy-graboyes","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/artisunity.net\/talkart\/judy-graboyes\/","title":{"rendered":"Judy Graboyes"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Chinatown, San Francisco<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Judy Graboyes ArtIsUnity Interview<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Judy, you play several instruments, are a band leader as well as participant in bands, you write poetry, and co-edited and published Loud & Proud, A Journal of Lesbian Creativity, and are also a visual artist. Do you think of yourself as an artist\u2014musician, writer, photographer, etcetera?<\/em><\/p>\n

I do not think of myself as an artist, but I do think of myself as a musician, and in the professional music world, musicians are called artists, so I guess technically I am an artist. I do consider myself to be a creative person through my writing, mostly poetry, and my photography.<\/p>\n

I call myself the accidental photographer, although I did go to commercial photography school briefly in my youth. I even had an enlarger and did some printing. I got into photography in recent years because I would post pictures on-line and a photographer I know would tell me that I have a really good eye.<\/p>\n

I consider myself to be in the style of a photojournalist. I take pictures as I move through the world. One day, very early in the morning, I was driving in San Francisco and crossed Grant Street, the main street of SF Chinatown. As I drove across Grant Street, I noticed out of the corner of my eye that there were no cars parked on the street. It was a very striking image because it a very busy street with lots of cars parked on it.<\/p>\n

I slammed on my brakes and snapped a pic. That photo was when I started calling myself a photographer. \u00a0At that time, I was in a group class called 12 x 12<\/em>; twelve women meeting in person once a month for twelve months, and everyone would bring in a piece of art they had made at home in any medium, but it had to be 12\u201d x 12\u201d. \u00a0I switched to photography in that group, I would get the 12″ x 12″ prints made at a professional art printer on all different kinds of paper. Who knew there were so many kinds of photography paper.<\/p>\n

I started the 12 x 12<\/em> group because I had just come back from eleven weeks in Atlanta in 2018 where I was volunteering for the Stacey Abrams for governor campaign. I needed something big in my life after that experience, and I found out about the 12 x 12<\/em> class. A friend convinced me to do it even though I wasn\u2019t a visual artist. I did some 3D assemblages, then I switched to photography after my Chinatown epiphany.<\/p>\n

In this US culture where art and artist are not integrated into the activity and career options as readily available, what does it mean to be an artist, to create art?<\/em><\/p>\n

To me, being an artist is just to create beautiful things that also speak to other people.\u00a0I have been playing in bands off and on since 1978, and I realized a long time ago that I did not want to depend on music for a living. I wanted the security of a paycheck, and I didn\u2019t want the lifestyle of playing in clubs five nights a week.<\/p>\n

Also, I always knew I had the talent but not the focus to be a professional musician. Practicing alone in my house has never been my forte. John Coltrane would sit in a room and practice one scale for eight hours. Although if you gig enough, you can make it.<\/p>\n

I was in a band, in the late 1980s, and the other percussionist would go to the studio and practice rudiments for four hours. I said to myself back then, \u201cI would rather go to work.\u201d I needed the human interaction.<\/p>\n

The same with writing. I always knew I was a good writer, but that is another thing you have to sit alone and do. I only ever write when I go to a class or a group.<\/p>\n

And cultural role of art and artist?<\/em><\/p>\n

In this culture, I see art as both political and cultural, and the two go hand in hand. Art is a beautiful tool to unite people around political causes. Visual art can be political, theater and film can be political, and spoken or written word can certainly be political.<\/p>\n

For example, V\u00edctor Jara was a Chilean singer-songwriter and key figure in the Nueva Canci\u00f3n (New Song) movement whose music focused on social justice, worker’s rights, and anti-imperialism. During the coup that overthrew Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973, the military captured Victor Jara and smashed his hands and wrists severely with rifle butts to prevent him from playing the guitar, and as a symbolic gesture to silence artists. The right wing knows the power of art.<\/p>\n

Art brings people together, it creates the joy we need to keep going, and it is a great way to raise funds. I accidentally fell into fundraising by producing musical events and I have raised almost $100,000 pretty much single-handedly for various nonprofits. I do love to create events. I have pretty much single-handedly produced over 25 events, mostly fundraisers. I create something that involves people. I am a fantastic networker.<\/p>\n

For eight years, I produced a musical extravaganza for the Charlotte Maxwell Clinic in Oakland. Most of the performers were black women, and all the performers got paid. I flew musicians in from New York and Atlanta, and some pretty magical music was created.<\/p>\n

Art is a vehicle to keep people in community, which we desperately need at this point in our country, I feel proud of my contribution to that effort.<\/p>\n

You co-edited and published Loud and Proud: A journal of Lesbian Creativity. Talk about how that came about.<\/em><\/p>\n

As I mentioned before, I don\u2019t like to do things that require sitting alone at home. I have known for a long time that I am a decent writer, but writing is a solitary craft. At some point during Covid, Celenia Del Sol, one of the members of the Rossmoor Lesbian Social Club who was trained in the Amherst Writing Method, started giving writing workshops on zoom. I took the workshop and organically began writing poetry.<\/p>\n

After several months of workshops, it was time for the Rossmoor LGBT Alliance Pride events.\u00a0 Being the producer that I am, I organized an on-line Pride reading for all the women that took Celenia\u2019s workshop and any other member of the Alliance who wanted to read. This was another example of the existential question about art; is it about the internal process of creating or is it about sharing it with the outer world and getting all that external validation. A healthy balance is the answer.<\/p>\n

The reading was such as success that Celenia and I looked at each other, and in the same breath we both said, \u201cWe should make a book.\u201d<\/p>\n

That is how Loud and Proud<\/em> was born.\u00a0 We decided to add visual art as well as written word. A friend of mine is a really great graphic artist, so we hired her to lay it out and do all the graphics. The finished product was quite professional and beautiful.<\/p>\n

We printed 200 copies, and it sold out quickly. We had a launch party outside, which was a really special gathering during Covid. We intended to keep the journal going with a commitment to have 50% of the contributors be women of color, but neither of us had the time for such a full-time endeavor.<\/p>\n

It is great for me to have another tangible example of my creativity; my one and only published writing. You know what they say. If you want something done, sometimes you have to do it yourself.<\/p>\n

I am very proud of both my writing in Loud and Proud<\/em> the process of producing the magazine. We still have the digital layout, so we can print more copies in the future if we want.<\/p>\n

Talk about your “day job” and relationship of having a basic living income to creating art? You’re involved in affordable housing and I would say you have an affinity for housing as physical space as living environment. For you, is there an artistry in business?<\/em><\/p>\n

I knew a long time ago that I didn\u2019t want to rely on music to earn a living, so while I am not opposed to getting paid to play music, I am able to contribute my music for free, if needed, to fundraisers, casual gigs, etcetera.<\/p>\n

I am also lucky that I found a career that fed my soul as well as supports me financially. I have worked in affordable housing since 1994. It\u2019s a perfect combination of my business and accounting background, my love of real estate, and my need to have work with redeeming social value.<\/p>\n

Being a good writer definitely helps in the business world. My work feels like assemblage, an art term invented in the 1950s by Jean Dubuffet, that incorporates “junk” or scavenged items in its 3D creations. When I was a lender, I had to assemble all the different parties in the deal and usher (or drag) the team toward the finish line; closing the loan. The \u201cjunk\u201d is the money part, the building part, the people part, and the finished product is a loan that allows a building to be built that houses a group of people and workers that creates its own synergy.\u00a0 It\u2019s also like arranging a song. Taking all the pieces and creating a song. It is a creative process for sure!<\/p>\n

Ahh yes, the creative art of living.<\/em><\/p>\n

Many thanks to Judy Graboyes; view her photographs in our Art Is Unity Gallery<\/a>. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

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Judy Graboyes ArtIsUnity Interview Judy, you play several instruments, are a band leader as well as participant in bands, you write poetry, and co-edited and published Loud & Proud, A Journal of Lesbian Creativity, and are also a visual artist. Do you think of yourself as an artist\u2014musician, writer, photographer, etcetera? I do not think …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"folder":[10],"class_list":["post-863","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artisunity.net\/talkart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artisunity.net\/talkart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artisunity.net\/talkart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artisunity.net\/talkart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artisunity.net\/talkart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=863"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/artisunity.net\/talkart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/863\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1246,"href":"https:\/\/artisunity.net\/talkart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/863\/revisions\/1246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artisunity.net\/talkart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artisunity.net\/talkart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/folder?post=863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}