When Onofrio realized that she had found a way to bring her collecting and her love of naive and visionary art into her own work, she knew that she had arrived: "I was really excited--I felt like I was in Aunt Trude's garden." She has been on an uninterrupted roll ever since, producing an astonishing amount of work. The latest group of small shrines and moderate-size wall pieces, for an exhibit at the Leedy-Voulkos Gallery in Kansas City (April 13-July 27) reflects a consolidation rather than a dramatic change from the Judyland installation. There are some changes. Tile is used instead of beads in some of the animal heads, and black grout instead of white, which sets the colors off differently. In one, a series of small figures is set in as a fence, a wonderful surprise as well as a neat formal device. And there is a new sense of freedom in the overall configurations. Several are more open, with more asymmetry and less formality.

The pieces demonstrate a by now absolutely assured handling of heterogeneous, completely unpredictable materials, and a satisfying balance between overall architectural design and surface decoration. One of the great pleasures of examining an Onofrio piece is the play between what is immediately apparent, such as a central figure, and what is gradually discovered, as when up-close investigation reveals a small saucer fragment of a picture of George Washington neatly placed on a horse's nose. There's no doubt that in her work of the past few years, Onofrio has clearly "gotten it." And how.

With her energy, she's not standing still. Her works frequently address what is rather grandly referred to as gender roles, with bears appearing as surrogate men, and horses and deer generally feminine. Abe Lincoln, Paul Bunyan and kitsch souvenir coconut heads come across as icons of masculinity. In contrast, many works have central female figures recalling Eve in the Garden of Eden, calmly seductive. But the settings suggest something outgoing and brassy, more along the lines of Mae West, Carmen Miranda, Ethel Merman, Bette Midler and Madonna.

Another long Minnesota winter has now ended, leading Onofrio to observe with delight, "It's kind of like 'the smell of the greasepaint.' It's getting to be spring and those garages are going to be opening soon." In her studio, now that the works for the Missouri exhibit have been shipped, a new challenge awaits. The materials are ready: a large batch of mosaic tile she's had stashed away for a long time, and some French escargot plates she purchased at a trailer sale a while back, with a surface texture she describes as "tufted couch." On the wall is the working drawing, upwards of 10 feet long, revealing the subject of this bas-relief-to-be: a mermaid on a couch. "I don't know how I'm going to pull it off," Judy Onofrio admits, then adds, in a characteristic burst of enthusiasm and obsession, "but I'm so into mosaic, I've got to do it."

* The installation was subsequently exhibited at the North Dakota Museum of Art and the Laumeier Sculpture Park & Museum, St. Louis. A 70-page paperback catalogue, Judyland: The Art of Judy Onofrio, with an essay by Laurel Reuter and 20 color and 10 black-and-white photographs, is available for $18 (including shipping) from the North Dakota Museum of Art Museum Shop, Centennial Drive, Grand Forks 58207.

Robert Silberman, a regular contributor to AMERICAN CRAFT, is a professor of art history and the director of film studies at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.

Copyright American Craft Council June/July 1996