'Between heaven and earth': Judith Roderick's 'The Crane' brings the birds to life with silk and watercolor

Cranes date back to the dinosaurs.

Sandhill cranes are among the oldest living species of birds.

Their mystery and elegance has long captivated Placitas fiber artist Judith Roderick, who has written a book “Tribute to the Crane,” stocked with poems and artwork depicting their grace and beauty.

Wild Hearts Gallery in Placitas is opening the new year with the exhibition “The Crane,” featuring Roderick’s images of her favorite birds in silk art quilts and watercolors from Tuesday, Jan. 2, through Jan. 28.

Roderick penned her first crane book in 2007 after visiting Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, where the birds winter in the tens of thousands.

“They have the same form as the pterodactyls,” she said. “You just go hang out with them every day. I photograph; I sketch. I started writing poems.”

Roderick was a painting and design major at Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh.

She has been depicting her high desert surroundings in fiber since 1982, when she was one of the original owners of the Albuquerque yarn store Village Wools. She followed a trajectory from oils, watercolors, acrylics and lithography before she discovered the vibrant palette of silk dyes. Her journey into the path of the silkworm began in 1982, when French silk dyes were introduced into this country.

“I’m using the thread like I was using the pencil,” she said.

The birds call in unison, their graceful necks arching in her luminous designs. They gaze at their own reflections, flap their wings and step gingerly into the water. The expansive sky, the sudden storms and the looming New Mexico mountains tumble into the backgrounds of Roderick’s silk canvas.

Most of her paintings and quilts show sandhill cranes except for “Whooper,” a single quilt depicting a whooping crane.

“We don’t have the whooping crane here, but they are the other cranes,” she said.

Roderick’s devotion is such that she traveled to Wisconsin’s International Crane Foundation. The organization works worldwide to conserve cranes and the ecosystems, watersheds and flyways on which they depend. Cranes are among the most endangered families of birds in the world, with 10 of the 15 species threatened with extinction. Threats to sandhill cranes include habitat loss, wetland loss and development.

'Between heaven and earth': Judith Roderick's 'The Crane' brings the birds to life with silk and watercolor

Greek and Roman myths often portrayed the dance of cranes as a love of joy and a celebration of life, and the crane was often associated with both Apollo and Hephaestus. Throughout Asia, the crane is a symbol of happiness and eternal youth.

To Roderick, the birds exude a spiritual quality.

“Most cultures revere that about them and have thought of them as messengers between heaven and earth. We are so lucky we get the sandhills here.”