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Commissions

For collectors who have a space in mind and are drawn to my approach and layered style, a commission is an opportunity to work directly with me on the perfect piece.

Learn more about the process

About Julia

An artist working in a studio surrounded by paintings and art supplies, with large windows behind her and multiple artworks hanging on the wall.
Black and white photo of a bookshelf filled with various books, magazines, and boxes, some leaning and stacked.

Artist Bio

I grew up in a home where making things was second nature. My parents encouraged my sister and me to create from an early age — giving us the confidence to make rather than buy, introducing us to artists who became mentors, and surrounding us with beautiful objects and original work. Becoming an artist was never in question.

I earned a BFA in painting from UMass Amherst and have been working and showing in the San Francisco Bay Area for more than twenty-five years. My studio has been in Sausalito's ICB Building since 2023 — north-facing windows, soaring ceilings, three large work tables, and good music.

The path here was not a straight line. Everything along it contributed to what the paintings are now.

An elderly person wearing a black paint-splattered jumpsuit and gloves is applying paint to a canvas with a spatula. The workspace has art supplies and bottles in the background.
A collection of used paintbrushes with various sizes and bristle types in a container against a white wall.
A mixed media collage artwork with images of a black-and-white landscape, a woman, and various text and graphic elements layered together.
An elderly woman with white hair smiling while painting on a piece of pink paper, wearing a black work shirt and smock with paint stains.
Paint palette knives hanging on a wall with some visible paint splatters.
A bright yellow book with a strip of clear tape across the middle, on which small pieces of white tape are stuck, resting on a black surface with a gray object nearby.
Open box with artwork on the inside and papers, including a diagram and handwritten notes, on the surface.

The Process

It starts with the studio. Everything organized, materials within reach, nothing left to chance. The space is intentionally minimal — white walls, north-facing windows, three large work tables. Good music, always. The room is prepared before the work begins, because the work requires it.

From there, several paintings develop at once. Color is mixed first — this is where the session finds its energy. Then the movement between canvases begins: responding to what each surface is asking for, adding a layer here, pulling back there, letting the rhythm build. When it arrives — and there is always a moment when it arrives — the paintings start making their own decisions.

The job shifts from leading to listening.

The materials are specific and physical: acrylic paint, gold, silver, and copper leaf, ephemera, oil-based and water-soluble markers and sticks. They are applied in layers across multiple sessions — paint over mark, leaf over pigment, one decision buried beneath the next. What gets covered isn't lost. It stays in the surface, present without being visible, felt by the people who eventually live with the work.

Step Into the Studio