She's not clowning about being an artist Artist: Judith Ewald, who is used to performing as a professional clown, let her paintings and drawings take over the starring role in four art shows recently.

Most people know Judith G. Ewald by her alter ego, Hugs the Clown. But not many know that she also is an art student at Anne Arundel Community College, whose work has been exhibited at art shows and appears on the cover of a school catalog.

Ewald's paintings and drawings were exhibited at four art shows in three months in the summer. Her crowning moment came in August, when community college officials reproduced one of her oil paintings for the cover of the school's fall 1996 schedule of noncredit classes.

"It was, like, 'Oh my goodness,' " Ewald recalled. "I was just trying to figure out what to do here. It was a pleasant surprise."

Ewald, 51, has been taking art and drawing classes for two years. This semester, she is studying illustration, landscape and life drawing.

Ewald, who grew up near Roanoke, Va., began taking oil painting lessons when she was 20. Her teacher told her she had an "eye for color," but couldn't "draw worth a hoot," she said.

"From that point on, I just assumed that I had no talent," she said. "And for 25 years, I did no drawing."

She married, raised a son and a daughter and became a real estate agent. She started doing magic tricks and making a few balloon animals for the daughter of a colleague and liked it so much she decided to become a clown. She took the name "Hugs" from another clown, she said.

Before long, Ewald was doing as many as six shows a day, mostly on weekends, for birthdays, office picnics and hospitals.

But she believed she couldn't be a clown forever.

"I love doing Hugs the Clown, but I don't know if I want to do it when I'm 80," she said. "I wanted to find something to supplement me being a clown."

So she took drawing classes and rediscovered her talent for painting. She entered her work in art shows, one of which was a juried exhibit at the college in July.

Cynthia McBride, owner of McBride Gallery in Annapolis and the lone judge, said she was impressed.

"You're looking for work that has the good basic skills that any artist should have, such as drawing and composition," McBride said. "But the artist should also have the ability to convey a message that evokes an emotion, that a viewer can respond to and be entertained with. [Ewald] has that."

College officials selected Ewald's "On the Move," a painting that includes a duffel bag, a high-heeled shoe and a bowling pin, for the catalog cover. Richard Nie-werth, a professor of fine arts, nominated Ewald's work after she painted it in his beginning painting class last semester.

"It had a very strong use of light and shadow," Nie-werth said. "When you look at the piece, you immediately respond to it. It has a very bold manner."

Ewald says that she intends to get a degree in art. She hopes that others who have been told they can't do something find the resolve to change some opinions.

"We all have some kind of talent," she said. "We just need to find it."

Pub Date: 10/10/96

PTC