Coming to Black Mountain Center for the Arts (BMCA) April 3 – 26, 2026 (Opening night: April 3rd, 5-6:30pm)
Three summers ago, on a family trip before her daughter left for college, Julie found herself in a lightkeeper’s house-turned-art museum on an island off the coast of Maine. The family was visiting her husband’s former professor. As Julie moved quietly through the space, as she often does—dwelling in the shadows, observing, and tending to her family—the professor turned to her and asked, “Who are you outside of your family?”
This work is her answer.
A lifelong artist, Julie has always been drawn to the act of creation. Residing as a painter for many years in the River Arts District, Julie’s life took a turn when her husband was diagnosed with early-onset Parkinsons. She took an eight-year hiatus from painting to rebuild her design career and help her family navigate a new reality. What began as a heart-breaking diagnosis evolved into a sacred journey of resilience, presence, and rediscovered joy. MADEofTHIS marks Julie’s return to art, celebrating the healing acts of wonder and play.
Originally conceived as an homage to the hand tools used by her grandparents in the early 1900s, the series grew into an exploration of the materials themselves. With quiet nods to the influences of Anni Albers and Sean Scully, MADEofTHIS is both playful and reverent. It follows a winding thread from weaving to spinning to dyeing, eventually leading to the raw process of carding and preparing wool from shorn fleeces.
Julie’s wish: that this work offers a quiet space to dwell and discover how both the harshness and softness of life coexist, and how loving it all leads to a life well lived.
“Being creative is not so much the desire to do something as the listening to that which wants to be done: the dictation of the materials.” ~ ANNI ALBERS, “Weaving in a College” n.d.
“The power of a painting has to come from the inside out, not the outside in. It’s not just an image. It’s an image with a body and that body has to contain its spirit … What’s behind it decides everything. How it starts will define how it ends.” ~ SEAN SCULLY
