BH: Julie, Thank You for taking the time to talk to us today for our Artist Spotlight. We have really enjoyed hearing the responses from various artists over the last few weeks. A big question, perhaps, but what led you to be inspired to create such unique elemental drawings?

Julie: How do you draw the invisible? How do you capture the essence of the fleeting and the intangible? These are questions that have framed my art practice for many years and continue to intrigue on a daily basis. I go out into nature every day, camera in hand. What draws me are the transient marvels than may be gone within hours, if not minutes or seconds of my being there. Dew on a cobweb, flickering sunlight through trees, marram grass blowing in the wind making lines in the sand.
 

Julie: At my core there is a preference for trial and error, rather than reading the instruction manual, for experimentation and discovery over following what’s gone before. Was I inspired by someone or something to be like that? I don’t know. I remember being outraged by the ‘Painting by Numbers’ kit I was given as a child – as if my role was to fulfil someone else’s game plan. Later I became a dance educationalist and was similarly incensed that children were expected to learn adult movements and choreography as if they’re own were inadequate. I’ve always fought against the tyranny of technique which can be as disabling as it is enabling, constantly putting a barrier between the individual and the creative act. How many adults don’t dance, sing, draw or act because they’re waiting to be taught instead of just doing it and learning through that doing. I guess Isadora Duncan would have to be my icon in this regard, taking off her shoes and dancing barefoot in nature – nobody told her how to do that!