Judith Joseph

BILL PEKARA (BP): Good afternoon and welcome to Northbrook Voices, an oral history project sponsored by the Northbrook Public Library and the Northbrook Historical Society. Today is March 2nd, 2026. My name is Bill Pekara, and I’m pleased to welcome Judith Joseph, who has lived in Northbrook since 1986. What brought you to Northbrook?

JUDITH JOSEPH (JJ): Well, I was a young mom living in Chicago with my husband and my little baby, and the charms of a third floor walkup wore really thin when I had a little baby and a stroller to schlep up the stairs. My husband and I also were anticipating sending our little guy to school, and at the time, the schools were not very good.  So we sort of made a financial decision that rather than pay tuition for private schools, we would rather invest in a home. So we did what a lot of people do, and we decided to move to the suburbs and Northbrook, my husband had grown up in Glencoe, so we were looking on the North Shore and Northbrook, was accessible and affordable and we found a nice home and we moved here.

(BP): How did you choose this specific neighborhood in Northbrook that you moved to?

(JJ): Well, our first neighborhood was on Church Street, and, obviously the financial part, you know, the price point was right, but we really loved it because there were a lot of mature trees. It was the older part of town. We could walk to town. And during the years, I subsequently had twins two years after my first son was born.  So I had three little kids, and it was so great to be able to walk to the village green and the playground at Meadowbrook School, and we lived there until we outgrew the house right around the time the kids went into middle school. And then we moved east of Waukegan. So it was no longer like walkable to town.  But the kids were older, they were on bikes and it just was an appropriate move. And we still live in a neighborhood with a lot of old trees, so that’s really important to me.

(BP): What was Northbrook like when you first moved here? Do you remember anything about?

(JJ): I wouldn’t say that. It’s changed tremendously. I think I was really enjoying city life, and I feel like I was sort of went to the suburbs kicking and screaming. But as I settled into family life, it was really a different stage. And, I absolutely was amazed at the sort of, Leave it to Beaver quality of our neighborhood.  The kids could run around with their friends and we felt really safe. Neighbors were so nice. And once the kids were in school, the people in the school community were so warm and supportive. We had we went through some medical crises with my husband and, people, you know, the PTA sort of organized meal trains for us.  And, I mean, it just it’s a wonderful community. And I really do love it.

(BP): What has motivated you to stay in Northbrook or through the years?

(JJ): Well, we didn’t really have a reason to leave. Our kids are all grown up now. They went all the way through, Meadowbrook and Northbrook Junior High, and, GBN and, that was, as I said, the primary motivation for living here. But, now that we’re empty nesters, I have just found that I’ve grown to really love the lifestyle.  I live just two blocks from the forest preserve, and I have a dog, so I spent a great deal of time just walking in my neighborhood, and I see all sorts of wildlife. I see foxes and and we hear the owls at night, and it’s just a really natural place to live. And nature is really important to me.  So, you know, being able to walk two blocks to a place that’s not all manicured and, you know, that’s actually wild is just really important.

(BP): So how would you describe Northbrook to someone, who was considering moving here?

(JJ): Well, I think the things that I’ve already mentioned, I think it’s, it’s got an old school kind of warm community, and, I’d say that it’s tolerant. We have all sorts of friends who are not necessarily real conventional people, and nobody seems to bat an eyelash here, which I really appreciate. I’m an artist, so I’m not exactly typical either.  And I don’t seem to get any flack for that. In fact, I feel like I’m very supported. So that’s how I would describe it. It’s accessible. It’s doable. It’s affordable for. Well, and less so now. But it’s a warm place to live.

(BP): Can I ask you what inspired or led you to pursue your current career or field of interest?

(JJ): Well, I’ve really been making art since I was tiny, and I think that by about the age of 5 or 6, I felt like I wanted to be an artist when I grew up, and nothing really ever pushed me off that path. And fortunately, I had a very supportive attitude for my parents. I mean, I look back now and I think, gosh, you know, I probably should have gone to law school first.  Like a lot of my students are people who have retired who wanted to make art and, you know, had sensible careers first. So I just, always wanted to do it. And I have been very fortunate because I was able to cobble together teaching and freelance work and commissioned work and actually support what I do, which is very difficult to do and very rare.  So, that’s been a very lucky thing in my life.

(BP): How would you describe your educational background and its influences on your personal growth or your career?

(JJ): I had an excellent education. I had a public school education. I grew up in a suburb of Milwaukee. One particular feature was that I had a fabulous art teacher. I went to a school that was K through eight, and the art teacher was great. And then in high school, I also had great art teachers. So a lot of what I use in my daily work is actually stuff that I learned in, in grade school and in high school.  After that, I went on to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and I was, I didn’t actually commit to being an art student until I was a junior, because I was very interested in other topics like languages and literature and, and history, and I wanted to study all of that. But I managed to make up credits during summer school so that I graduated on time.

And then I was out in the world with absolutely no preparation for trying to be a professional artist. And I just happened to have this particular thing that I was able to do, which is called the ketubah. I had a background in Hebrew and Judaica and there’s this very kind of obscure folk art form called the ketubah, which is a Jewish marriage contract.  And this is getting off the subject of education a little bit. But I’ll, I’ll go ahead and explain this. The timing in my life was very fortuitous. The ketubah is basically a prenuptial agreement. It’s a wedding contract, and it dates back to the days before people would go and have a civil ceremony.

Everybody was married by religious authority. So in the Jewish religion, the rabbis wrote up this contract because they were very concerned that if the marriages would break up, the women were absolutely destitute and women and kids were ending up on the street. So 2000 years ago, they wrote this prenup that ensured that women would have property in the event of a divorce.  And obviously, this was in response to a time of social upheaval when it was a problem. So right when I was in high school, junior in high school, in 1973, I was looking for a gift for my parents for their anniversary, and I found a book called The Ketubah, which I’d never heard of. And it was all these beautiful illustrated, marriage contracts.  And I was I bought it for them, and I was so excited. And I told this friend of mine who was a young rabbi, who was the advisor to my youth group. I said, Fred, have you ever seen this before? I’ve never knew about this. And I was already really into art and already pretty well versed in Hebrew.

Thanks to my parents, sending me to Hebrew school and my public high school had Hebrew classes. So, Fred said, yeah, yeah, I know about that. He said, you know, I’m getting married this summer. I said, I know, I’m so happy for you. And he said, how would you like to make my ketubah? I said, I have no idea how to do that.  He said, I’ll help you. I’ll coach you. So he did, and it changed my life. And a couple of my cousins were married that summer, and it just was a constellation of good luck things for this advisor, this book, and also another book came out that year called The First Jewish Catalog, which was modeled on the Whole Earth Catalog, which was kind of a how to was like a hippie dippy, how to do everything yourself.

And this was sort of the same thing. But for like Jewish rituals. So it had a big article on Hebrew calligraphy and how to write a ketubah. I mean, the same time just when I needed it. So and speaking of education, I also was very educated by my parents because my mother loved art and was very, very active in the Milwaukee Art Museum.

She was one of their primary docents, and every exhibit that came, we went to see it. And she also went back to college. When I was about 12 and took art history classes, and she used to come home and she would like, regurgitate the whole lecture to me and open her books and show me pictures. Of course, it was before the internet, so I had this whole background in art history, including illuminated manuscripts, which I loved, which are, you know, illustrated handwritten books.  So I was already, like, enchanted with the idea of doing scribal works and illustrating them before I even found out about the ketubah. So all of these things were conspired. So my parents educated me, and also I had a family background, very, very rich and cultural information about Judaism and also history. Thanks to my father as well.

So, when I started making ketubahs, of course, my parents were all in. They thought it was great. So I really felt like this was my destiny. I honestly.

(BP): I was going to ask you, who are influential figures in your life and how are they impact your values and beliefs? You may have covered that there, but is there anything else, anyone else besides your mother and father that you’d like to?

(JJ): Well, I mean, they’re really important. But also I would say the great artists. You know, I really, I look to them for examples of so many things technique, ideas, concepts, creativity, how you live your life. But also like, especially Picasso and my work is nothing like Picasso at all. But, I admire so much his willingness to try different media.  And that’s been really a big thing for me because I work and I make illuminated manuscripts, which are really my bread and butter. That’s really how I’ve been able to make a living as an artist, primarily. But also I do printmaking, I do installation works, painting and drawing. So, you know, Picasso’s my model for that because he did ceramics.  He did in addition to, of course, his famous paintings, but he did ceramics. He did sculpture. He did printmaking. And he, you know, not everything he made was perfect or great, but he was he was unafraid of failure. So that to me is a great role model.

(BP): Looking at your career, are there specific achievements or projects that stand out to you?

(JJ): Well, I just today I’m taking down a retrospective exhibit here at the Northbrook Public Library, and that feels like a great achievement because I’ve never been able to show the whole range of my work. The earliest work in this exhibit was from 1979. It was like a ketubah and that feels like a real milestone. And I also felt very supported by the community.  There was an opening reception with a program where I was interviewed by the head by Bruce Bondy, who was the head of the Arts Commission on stage. And beforehand I thought, I don’t even know if people are going to show up to this. I have no idea. You know, I was thinking, if at least 15 people come, I’ll be happy and not only, you know, of course, family and friends, but artists came who I know and people from the Northbrook community, many of whom my kids grew up with, who I haven’t seen in years, but also people I didn’t even know. And there were close to 100 people there. And I felt, I mean, that felt really good. Aside from that, I’ve participated in exhibits in Europe, and Canada, those feel like big milestones.  But having a solo exhibition is a big deal. I mean, this isn’t my first one, but it’s my most comprehensive.

(BP): How about are there any obstacles or challenges in your career and how have you navigated through them?

(JJ): There are constant obstacles and challenges. I would say the money part is major. It’s always a hustle. You never have. You know, you really can never stop hustling. Another major one was the advent of the internet, because I had no background whatsoever in computers or in graphic design or anything. And I basically learned from my kids, you know, when they were like seven and eight years old, literally, I didn’t even know what a mouse was.  But I discovered, because I have to do things for myself, like I have to photograph my own work. I have to frame my own work because it’s too expensive to pay somebody. I also learned to make websites, and that was a real big surprise. That was a huge learning curve. But I even started well before there were templates.  I had to learn how to write code and really structure it from the ground up, which was incredibly hard. I didn’t think at first that I could do it, but I didn’t give up. And I had a friend who was a web designer and he just said to me, come on over to my place of business. You’ll have to do your own work.  But if you get stuck, you can ask one of my people. And that’s how I got over the hump. So I’m very, very stubborn and determined and I don’t I don’t give up easily. I mean, there are things I fail at and I admit it, but I really, really bust my head against the wall until I’m willing to accept failure.

(BP): How about interest in hobbies that bring you joy and relaxation?

(JJ): I would say being outdoors in nature and my dog walking with my dog. I used to love to ski. I haven’t done that in a long time, but I was a sailor once upon a time. I used to teach sailing lessons when I was in college. We had a sailing club at, University of Wisconsin-Madison. That was my summer job, so that was sweet.  It was the best job ever. Mostly I’m so wrapped up in art and also teaching. I teach watercolor painting and calligraphy and various other things at the Chicago. Excuse me, the Chicago Botanic Garden. And I’ve been there for 24 years or so. I love it.

(BP): Can you share any details about your early life and the environment you grew up in?

(JJ): Well, I have two siblings. I’m the youngest, and our household was very, there was a lot of intellectual discourse. My father he was a doctor. He’s still alive, by the way. He’s 100 and half years old. He was at my opening? Which was so great, so great. And he’s got all his marbles.  He’s so sharp. And he was a doctor. But, in addition to being interested in that, he was really a historian. Like, he would have loved to be a high school history teacher. So he was constantly reading history books and other things and telling us about it. My mother was constantly learning about art. So, I mean, the conversation in our home was pretty uber nerdy, and my brother was also just he was a brilliant guy.  And he ended up getting a PhD in international relations. And my sister was really bright too. So, you know, I was a really nerdy kid. Nobody ever threw me a ball. I mean, I was really the last one picked in gym class. And those are great things and hard things when you’re a little kid, but they really benefit you when you’re grown up.  You know, I don’t know what else to say about it. Milwaukee was a very nice place to grow up. You know, we lived. It’s very kind of like a mini version of how I live now. Very similar.

(BP): Looking back, what advice would you offer to your younger self based on your life experiences?

(JJ): I do have one thing that I would have done differently. I did not go to grad school. The big reason to go to grad school as an artist is to be an art professor, and I didn’t know at the time that I could teach. I had no aptitude, I didn’t think or interest. And, I was also very, very eager to get out of school and, and kind of live life because I felt like I’d lived a very, very sheltered life.

So in a way, I made the right choice because it’s worked out really well for me. But  when I had children and I was teaching them all the time, I realized like, oh, maybe I should teach art classes for kids. So I started doing that through the Northbrook Park District. Another example of how this community has really nurtured everything that I do.

And then I progressed to teaching adults, and I realized that’s a really big part of my interest.  And I love teaching, and I know that I could have, you know, done that on a college level. I pretty much the courses that I teach at the Botanic Garden and other places, I kind of teach at that level because I just feel like it might as well offer the best of what I know and what I can do.

But like I said, there’s a positive and negative to everything. And, it may be that I made a better choice by not doing that. Yeah, I don’t know.

(BP): How has your approach to leadership and decision making evolved over the years?

(JJ): Oh, that’s such an interesting question. When I was young, I never felt like a leader. I didn’t exactly feel like a follower. I just felt like I was sort of like, doing my own thing. But I do feel that I become a leader in a lot of ways. You know, through my experience as an artist, I find that, I’ve been involved in co-op galleries and also artists groups. And, you know, I found that there are younger artists who seek me out for advice and, and also people my age who maybe aren’t as far along career wise. Maybe they had to do another job first, and they’re coming to art. So I’ve coached a lot of artists, you know, professionally, like on a kind of a consultant basis, but also in group classes, you know, coaching people on career things and how to use social media to advance their career and things like that. So it sort of is something I’ve discovered on myself that I didn’t know I had. I think it’s mostly because I had three kids in two years.  And, you know, there was a lot there were three boys who were very busy. And, you just have to kind of sink or swim. So you learn a lot of logistics and you learn to be bossy.

(BP): What guiding values or principles have shaped your life.

(JJ): What an interesting question. Well, I would say kindness first and foremost. And I have great role models for my parents for that. I think they were always very kind and considerate to other people. That’s the main one. Also, I try to. I mean, you know, you try to live your values and, and encourage the best impulses in yourself.

I believe in hard work. As I said, I don’t believe in giving up on things. I really try to be open minded, especially as a parent. And be able to examine my own faults and admit them and not be defensive about them. That’s a big one. And as far as the community I try to give back, I, I’m not in a position to be a philanthropist, but I try to give back in terms of time and supporting things that I have skills, you know, like cultural things and stuff like that.

(BP): Could you provide insights into your family structure and the role that it has played in your life?

(JJ): So I have a husband and I have three children. I’ve been married, let’s see, for over 45 years. So I think my marriage is central to my life and our commitment to each other. And parenting these three sons has been also central, and they are all very interesting and creative people. My eldest son is an editor at Politico, so he’s a wonderful writer and he’s become an editor. The twins are both two of the most creative people I’ve ever known, and I’ve known a lot of creative people. They’ve worked in business, but one of them left the business world to be a photographer and videographer. So he’s facing a lot of the same challenges that I do. But he seems to be way far ahead of where I was a year and a half into it.  And my other son has worked in computer sales and they’re both actually, all three of my kids really are people. People, people, but very creative. How does the family structure? Well, I would say I always put my family first. I mean, art is very nice, but it doesn’t even come close to my commitment to my family.

(BP): Would you be willing to share any memorable experiences or achievements from your personal life that you cherish?

(JJ): Well, I mean, meeting my husband was wonderful, and has been great, and he’s very supportive of what I do. It’s hard to put all that into words. I think, I love my I mean, my kids are I love them as adults. It’s fabulous. I mean, they are so interesting and we share so much, you know, about our creative life.  I have great friends, and I cherish them. I feel very fortunate. I don’t know what else to say about personal things. I guess, like I said, being in nature is very, very important to me. And I’m from Wisconsin originally, and for many years, our family had a place to go to up in the Northwoods, and that is a core experience for me.  And we don’t have it anymore. And I do really miss it. But we went up in all seasons. So being able to go bushwhacking, cross-country skiing in the woods and the snow and seeing the birch trees around us. So all of that is very much a part of my soul, and also very much a part of my art.

(BP): Where in the North Woods?

(JJ): It was called Manitowish Waters, which is way up near the U.P. so it’s north of Minocqua. Minocqua is the closest big town, it’s about 30 minutes north of Minocqua.

(BP): So what are you looking forward to in the future?

(JJ): You know, so I’m a person who’s very much in the present and, and sometimes I think to myself, I really have to make some plans, but I sort of carry on, like my dad always says, just plodding along. I think I’m going to continue to work for a very long time, as long as I can, because, well, we need it, but also because, it’s who I am, really.  I mean, it’s play as well as work, although it’s hard work. Don’t  think it’s not. But, so that’s what I, that’s what I anticipate for the future. I hope to do some more traveling because that’s something that also is very important to me. Oh, I’ll, I’ll mention one thing that was really personal. When I graduated from college, I went backpacking in Europe with a friend, and we traveled around from.

We started in England and went down through Amsterdam and France to Spain. I went to Italy. Then my friend went home and I went to Greece, and I was an au pair with a family for a month and a half. That was an incredible experience. And I knew that it would probably be the only opportunity I’d have in my life to do something like that.  So I really jumped at it, and I’m so glad that I did. And I feel like, I was such a sponge for all the experiences and all the art that I saw, but also just the sensory experiences, I, I remember it so clearly and it’s it’s been so much a part of my art and a big, a big element for me is storytelling, which really comes into play with the ketubahs because I’m telling other people’s stories, and I love kind of interviewing them and, and trying to meet them where they are and, and create something that’s about them.

But I do think that, you know, just seeing the richness of so many cultures and the stories that I experienced and that I saw, that was an indelible event for me.

(BP): Is there anything else you’d like to add today?

(JJ): Yes. I had one really great experience. That actually happened during Covid. There was an opportunity for a fellowship through the University of Illinois. They advertised a call for artists, and they said they were going to choose 20 artists from the whole state of Illinois, and ten of them would be positions given to people who were graduates of their own program.  So that left ten slots. And then I thought, I’m going for that. And the fellowship was about Abraham Lincoln. And what they did was they had a Lincoln scholar who’s a professor at the U of I  and an art professor conduct a residency about learning about Abraham Lincoln and then producing art about him. And it was, it was during Covid.  So it was and we were all over the state. So they did it on zoom and we would meet like once a month. We were given books to read and things. So we really immersed ourselves. But the artists were from all different media, like there was a virtual reality artist and they were theater people, and there were, graphic artists and printmakers and painters and performance artists and installation artists.  So it was so stimulating just to see how all these different people, all different ages and backgrounds, ethnicities, how they all, sort of brought the story and the message of Lincoln into contemporary times. And it was a fabulous experience and all of the art was purchased. They paid us to make art and then it became part of the collection in the collection, the permanent collection of the University of Illinois.  And it was exhibited at like four different places around the state. One of them I actually helped facilitate the Northern Illinois University Art Museum. And my piece was an installation piece about, that involved Lincoln’s words. You can see it on my website, judithjosephart.com. And it was just such a growing experience for me and, and really a high point, I think in my career.

(BP): Judith, thank you so much for participating in Northbrook Voices. Your memories of life in North Park are going to add a very unique and personal perspective about the history of our town. Thank you.
(JJ): It was my pleasure. Thank you for having me.