Photo courtesy of Julie Beeler.
JULIE BEELER
Julie Beeler is an alchemist. Her work is bound up in the landscape; every thread is infused with botanical energy, as she gently simmers Mother Nature to unlock her colors.
She experiments with the unpredictability of plants by growing and harvesting, observing and foraging, and tethering herself to nature’s seasons. Blooming and dyeing takes time. She smells, cooks, immerses and bundles up plants, blooms, leaves, seeds, roots, berries, and bark. Julie transforms the natural world and it transforms her. The pinkish roots of madder, lush green leaves of indigo and tall flowering weld each leave their trace of color on her hands to carry with her.
Her textiles are imbued with these earthly colors and botanical prints, layer by layer, color upon color. Drawing on cultural traditions and ancient natural dye histories each textile object is cut, sewn, stitched and constructed to reveal patterns, textures and color that are a record of a place and time, reflecting our relationship to the natural world.
Photo courtesy of Julie Beeler.
Photo courtesy of Julie Beeler.
Photo courtesy of Julie Beeler.