by Len Lear

Based on her resume, you’d think that Chestnut Hill artist Judith McCabe Jarvis, 56, would be one of the best known artists in the country. The graduate of Springside School (1977) and Temple University’s Tyler School of Art (1981), whose new work was on display this month at the Chestnut Hill Gallery, 8117 Germantown Ave., has won more art awards than you can shake a paint brush at.

There is not enough space here to list them all, but here is just a representative sampling: Ocean City, NJ, Plein Air Competition, First Place, 2012; Chadds Ford Days Art Show, Fall of 2009, Best Watercolor; Cheltenham Art Center Annual Juried Show, Vita Solomon Memorial Award; Artist Equity, Juried Show, Fall of 2004, 1st Place; Hardcastle Gallery, Fall of 2004, Evening for The Arts, Best in Show; Need N Deed Competition, 1st Place, et al. (The one she is most proud of was being awarded “Artist In Residency “ at Burren College of Art in Burren, Ireland. She will go there in October of this year.) Cornell University recently asked if they could put her painting," Picnic Park," on the cover of "Epoch," their literary magazine published since 1947.

According to Mark Sullivan, Ph.D,
Professor of Art History at Villanova University and a former reviewer for Art Matters, the region’s leading art magazine, “Judith McCabe Jarvis paints in a style that is realistic in the sense that one can recognize the locations she is recording on her canvases, but her brushwork is much more painterly than that of a Howard Pyle or a Wyeth…

“In looking at one of her paintings, you may be reminded of the nostalgia in Edward Hopper’s work or of the sunny optimism in Fairfield Porter’s oils … Jarvis’ paintings have won many regional awards in recent years because they remind us of deeply felt, if inexpressible, experiences that we have all had at different times and places in our lives.”

Judith, who grew up in Wyndmoor, wanted to be artist since she was 5 years old. At Springside she “had a wonderful art teacher named Elaine Weinstone, who has since died … My father, a lawyer, painted nocturnes of Broad Street from a window at the Land Title Building in the 1960s. My mother also tried her hand at art, taking classes at Chestnut Hill College. We spent a lot of time at The Barnes Foundation and Philadelphia Museum of Art.”

After graduation from Tyler, Jarvis had “every crappy job under the sun, from brokerage firms to waitressing, selling oriental rugs and painting faces for ‘Peanut Butter,’ a party entertainer and clown. We went to Bar Mitzvahs dressed up and painted David Bowiesque designs on guests’ faces. I had a studio in East Falls during that time.”

During the 1980s, when Jarvis had a show at Gross McCleaf Gallery, she was pasteling more geometric and cubist pictures. She switched over to oils and then moved to Chadds Ford, where she became more representational. The 59th Chadds Ford Art Show in 2009, which was started by Betsy Wyeth, included 125 of Jarvis’ pieces. In addition, she painted a 50-foot mural on the elementary school wall where Jamie Wyeth and NC Wyeth have murals in the library.

Jarvis has won numerous first place awards in juried art exhibitions.

She had a studio along the Brandywine Battlefield for 14 years until recently moving to West Valley Green Road in Flourtown, where she is building a new studio. “I want to paint Flourtown, Erdenheim and Chestnut Hill,” she said last week. “Too many artists are painting Chadds Ford. There is great architecture in Chestnut Hill and the grit and diversity of being closer to Philadelphia, which has a rich history of architecture.”

What does Jarvis think are the pros and cons of being an artist? “The pros are it is fun; I meet interesting people, get to make beautiful things and be my own boss. The cons are poverty — I spend a large portion of my life covered in paint — spending a lot of time alone, being judged, being competitive and political, and making commissions can be very difficult.”

Buying art is clearly a luxury, not a necessity, and almost any local artist you talk to will admit that things have gotten even worse since the recession of 2008. “The art market has shrunk,” said Jarvis. “I have to aggressively market myself on social networks. Last year I had a very good year, though. The art market has shrunk, but I paint to live, which means I do it mostly for me.”

If Jarvis had her way, in addition to being an artist she would be an Olympic swimmer, concert violinist or standup comedian. Her most impressive characteristic, though, “is that I can guess the bill in any restaurant, parallel park and read people’s minds. I also solve crimes and am a good diagnostician. I can also peel an orange with one hand in one peel.”

What is the best advice Judith has ever received? “Get your moles checked, and wear sun screen.”

Jarvis’ husband, Geoffrey Jarvis, is a Harvard-trained lawyer. The couple have two daughters, Mary Jarvis, a poet and senior at Cornell University, and Anna Jarvis, a freshman swimmer at Lafayette College.

In her spare time, Jarvis runs or walks five miles a day, mostly in nature, reads, watches historical documentaries on Netflix and “gazes lovingly into my dog Abbie’s eyes. She is 14, a rescue dog who’s basically a mutt from the Media SPCA.”

For more information, visit www.judithmccabe.com.