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Her passion for painting has attracted the attention of a wide
audience. In her familiar surroundings she is fondly known as
an artist of the people. She not only draws her inspiration
from local landscape, but returns her scenic portraits back
to communities to raise money for charity.
Julie's
Berks County, home is surrounded by the rolling hills, farmlands
and forests of southestern Pennsylvania. From an early age these
surroundings influenced her artistic development. After completing
her Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree at Bethany College, Lindsborg,
Kansas, she began a career as a fine artist, first working in
Williamsburg, Virginia before settling in Pennsylvania where
she established her name among the artists of the mid-Atlantic
states. Awards and exhibitions soon gave way to the commissions
that remain the major portion of her work today.
She is comfortably proficient working in any medium, whether
it be watercolor, oil or acrylic. Her preference of medium depends
on the effect she wishes to achieve. Her studios are set up
with a designated area for each medium, allowing her to move
from one to the other with ease. She has several paintings in
progress at any given time.
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Julie
with one of her collections at
the Schwenkfelder Library
& Heritage Center
The exhibit concluded in
March, 2004
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The
majority of her work is realistic and subjective in nature, leaning
to impressionistic style in various compositions, reveals her
pleasure playing with color, seeking the light of those magic
hours the impressionists so loved to capture. After years of painting
and filling her sketch books with realistic images, she enjoys
creating compositions from memory, bending reality with a bit
of abstraction. She classifies these under the heading of Colonial
Surrealism, a term she invented in 1980. She gives whimsical names
to some of these series like Sunset Memoirs, The Hills of Blue
Moon and her new collection "Moonlight Memoirs."
As you journey through this web site, you will notice that Julie's
paintings encompass a variety of subjects and styles, moods and
color forms, but one thing is for sure, she has not lost her love
for painting, nor has she forgotten her roots. Although her home
today, remains in Pennsylvania, growing up, she spent her summers
in Seeleys Bay, Ontario. There she found a love for the Canadian
landscape and in 1998 established a second studio home in Port
Hood, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.
Candace Perry, curator
Schwenkfelder Library and Heritage Center.
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