Judy McWillie is a visual artist and author who arrived in Athens in 1974 to teach painting at the Lamar Dodd School of Art. She was the first woman to be granted tenure in studio art and the first to be appointed full professor. A native of Memphis, she has published extensively about African American vernacular art and the American South in arts and culture magazines and anthologies. She co-authored the book, No Space Hidden: the Spirit of African American Yard Work, with Grey Gundaker in 2005. McWillie has exhibited her paintings throughout the United States and in Italy, Sweden and Japan.