Judith Scott

1943-2005 · Ohio / California, USA

Institutionalised at seven, silent all her life, she made nothing until her twin sister brought her to an art studio at 43. Then she made eighteen years of masterpieces.

The life

Judith and Joyce Scott were inseparable twins in Ohio until Judith, born with Down syndrome and deafened by childhood illness, was sent to an institution at seven. She spent 35 years in state care, unreachable. In 1985 Joyce became her guardian, moved her to California, and enrolled her at Creative Growth in Oakland. In 1988, after a fibre-art workshop, Judith began wrapping, and did not stop until her death in 2005. The Brooklyn Museum’s 2014 retrospective Bound and Unbound confirmed what Creative Growth already knew.

The work

More than two hundred cocooned sculptures: found objects, sometimes an umbrella, a fan, once reportedly a set of keys someone was looking for, bound in layer upon layer of yarn, fabric and twine into forms that feel like guarded hearts. Nobody knows what is inside most of them. That is the point.

Why we love them

The single strongest argument on earth for what happens when somebody finally hands over materials instead of judgements.

Go deeper

• Creative Growth, Oakland
• Where to see outsider art, our full list of museums and collections.
• The glossary, if any of the terms here are new.

Kindred spirits

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