ABOUT ME

Hi, I'm Julia! Thanks for checking out my page. Art and creativity have been my passions since before I can remember. I first became interested in linoleum block carvings when I moved to Santa Barbara from Kentucky in 2011 and was working as an assistant art teacher at a bilingual charter school. I brought some of the materials from the classroom home one day and became enamored with the ease and satisfaction of carving the soft linoleum blocks. I quickly remembered the blocks I had carved in elementary and high school and that my grandfather carved wood blocks in his free time as a boat builder in the Boston area.

During the Covid pandemic, from 2020- 2021, I became enamored with the precision and simplicity of colored pencil. Inspired by the year-round growing season of the Central Coast of California, I created a series of hyper realistic fruits and vegetables. The name PRODUCE represents both the fresh crops I chose to draw as well as the attempt to fight the inertia that often crept in when the global health crisis changed our daily ways of living.

Prior to my fascination with linoleum carving and colored pencil drawing, I went to architecture school where I learned a great respect for space and art as well as a love of working with my hands. In addition to practicing my art, I am a high school public school art teacher. I love nurturing students’ creativity and helping them to visually express themselves through a variety of media.