By COLIN M. STEWART By COLIN M. STEWART ADVERTISING Tribune-Herald Staff Writer Call her a Hollywood stunt painter. Part-time Hilo resident Judith Zeichner has always been interested in art, beginning her career as a young woman learning about the fashion
By COLIN M. STEWART
Tribune-Herald Staff Writer
Call her a Hollywood stunt painter.
Part-time Hilo resident Judith Zeichner has always been interested in art, beginning her career as a young woman learning about the fashion industry. Ultimately, however, she gravitated to painting landscapes and figures. She can often be found outdoors with an easel, capturing scenes of pastoral beauty, or teaching painting to continuing education students.
That is, until Jane Fonda came calling.
When Bruce Beresford, the Academy-Award-winning director of “Driving Miss Daisy,” and actress Jane Fonda teamed up to film a story featuring a hippie grandmother artist living in a farmhouse in the New York countryside, they turned to Zeichner, who spends most of her time in Kerhonkson, N.Y., to provide the art.
“I have a photographer here in Hudson Valley who photographs all my paintings,” she said in a phone interview on Thursday morning. “There was this man … working on the film and he was looking for someone to provide the paintings that Jane Fonda has in her studio in the film. … She (the photographer) gave him her file, and he found my paintings and he said, ‘This is gonna be the person.’”
Set design workers ended up borrowing about 55 of Zeichner’s pieces, with 12 making their way into the final product, “Peace, Love and Misunderstanding,” starring Fonda, Catherine Keener, Chace Crawford and Elizabeth Olsen.
In addition to having her work featured in the background of the film, there were a couple scenes where she was asked to produce half-finished work that Fonda would sit at and pretend to be painting. She was also asked to spend some time with Fonda to teach her how to look like a painter while working.
Right off the bat, Zeichner said, she proved the value of having a real artist work with the star when she corrected Fonda as she tried to use a small brush.
“I told her that small brushes are only used for detail when you’re finishing a painting, and the brush strokes wouldn’t match if she used a brush like that,” she explained.
She added that she was very impressed by Fonda’s professionalism and willingness to put up with long hours in uncomfortable situations.
“One day, it was boiling hot, and she’s wearing a huge, big wig with lots of hair,” Zeichner said. “She sat at the easel all day, she did that all day long. Take after take. And at the end of the day, she called me over to see that she’d actually done a little bit of painting on top of my painting, and she was so proud of it she just wanted to give me a hug. She did a wonderful job.”
As an artist whose work is a solo affair, Zeichner said she was fascinated to watch the collaborative process necessary for moviemaking.
“I was really impressed with how everybody seems to know what they’re doing,” she said. “I felt like I was on a ship and we’re all sailing along and everybody knows how to make it move in the right direction, with hardly anyone needing to tell them what to do. They were all working with great intensity and a lot of camaraderie.”
In many ways, she added, it reminded her of paddling a canoe in Hilo Bay.
“It’s a wild thing to be a part of a group doing something in coordination with other people. It’s such a different experience than painting. … As a painter, I’m it. There’s no one else but me from start to finish. Sometimes I have to mull and mull and mull before I solve a problem, but I have my time to do it and it’s a very autonomous thing to do,” she said.
Despite the wonderful experiences, however, Zeichner didn’t have to think long when asked if she’d like to continue working in the movies.
“No,” she said simply. “It’s not as if I’m a famous painter, or I’ll be a famous painter. … I’m an undercover person, and I just kept telling myself, ‘Judy, you’re just a prop.’”
Zeichner’s work can be viewed at www.judyzeichner.com. Some of her paintings can also be found at the Hilo Fine Arts Center.
“Peace, Love and Misunderstanding” will be screened at the Palace Theater in Hilo on today at 7 p.m., Sunday at 2:30 p.m., and Monday and Tuesday at 7 p.m. Ticket prices are $7 general, $6 seniors and students, $5 Palace Stars. The box office and doors will open half an hour prior to showtime. For more information about the theater, visit www.hilopalace.com.
Email Colin M. Stewart at cstewart@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
