Judy Creasy is both a consummate artist and an avid fly fisher. Her early interest in art was spurred by an inspiring secondary-school art teacher in her hometown of Oberlin, Ohio. After graduated from high school, she attended the University of Virginia. Here she completed a BS in nursing, bolstered by art classes.
After UVA, Creasy moved to New York City. She nursed at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital, where she met her future husband, obstetrician and gynecologist Dr. Robert (Bob) Creasy. She also took art classes at Columbia University.
Now married, she and Bob lived in Paris for eight months. There, she again studied art at the renowned Academie Julienne, which she also had done in a prior visit.
During her formative years as an artist, Creasy experimented with etching, water colors, oil, and other techniques. She settled on oil as her favored medium to portray a range of subjects, including landscapes, still lifes, and portraits.
In her art, Creasy follows her creative impulses. She mainly paints en plein-air — at the site. Through her own natural lens and with free-flowing brush strokes, she strives to capture “the moment,” as distinct from a photographic look. The results are loose portrayals of her subjects, particularly scenes of rivers, streams, mountains, and woodlands. Her still-life paintings and paintings of human subjects are more realistic, but still personal expressions.
While art has always permeated Creasy’s life, her love affair with fly fishing was ignited in midlife. To understand her devotion to this sport, and even more so that of her husband, Bob, one must first look to New Zealand. In 1978, the Creasy family traveled to the land of the kiwi, where Bob took a year-long sabbatical from his medical practice. What resulted from their stay in this beautiful country, with its plentiful rivers and trout, was a passion for fly fishing.
Judy Creasy says that to this day, her most treasured activity is to stand in a clear, cold New Zealand river and cast a fly for its trout. A fishing guide has even named a pool on the Hinemaiaia River (shown above in the painting of her husband fishing), “Judy’s Pool.”
