Skalsky Memorial To Open at Art Center College

The Judi Skalsky Memorial Garden, honoring the former Pacific Palisades resident, will be officially dedicated on Sunday, May 23 at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. Skalsky, a design communications consultant in New York and Los Angeles, died on September 30, 2003, following a fall in her garden on Villa Grove near Will Rogers State Historic Park. She was 60. The memorial garden, endowed by her mother Rose Skalsky, is situated on the roof of the new South Campus of the Art Center College of Design. Designed by Nancy Goslee Power, the garden reflects Skalsky’s devotion to the tranquility and purity of the natural landscape and includes a wide range of grasses of varying color and texture. Skalsky was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on January 31, 1943. She spent her early years with her family in Iowa and graduated from the University of Iowa. She received a fellowship to Rutgers University, where she earned an M.A., in political science. Soon after, she started her career in New York as special assistant to New York City Mayor John V. Lindsay. Joining Vignelli Associates in Manhattan as director of public relations, Skalsky discovered her love of architecture and design. In 1977 she moved to Los Angeles and launched a career specializing in collaborations with architects and designers on presentation and marketing. Her clients included Frank Gehry, Brenda Levin and Jon Jerde. During the 1980s she also maintained a wide range of clients outside the design world, including Citicorp, Columbia Pictures and Mobil Oil. She created publicity for both the Los Angeles and Korean Olympics. Her work ‘Cities Within Cities’ was translated into Chinese by Beijing University. At the time of her death, Skalsky had just completed the launching of a three-year communications campaign for the USC School of Architecture. She is survived by her parents, Milton and Rose Skalsky of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and her sister, Jeanne Skalsky Carter of Olathe, Kansas.