About me
I am a painter, printmaker and designer of textiles. I own a small fabric company called Cloth that I set up more than 25 years ago, because it made sense at the time and still does now.
I live in NSW's Blue Mountains on Dharug and Gundungurra land, where I work with a small team of people who love what they do, making textiles by hand, the old-fashioned way.
I collaborate with others for the joy of making something together that we couldn’t make alone.
During the heady, early days of the pandemic, I developed a collaborative ephemeral art project, designed to support people's mental health through engaging with a once-a-week creative practice.
I take commissions and I exhibit. My favourite place to be is working in my studio. Or pottering about the garden.
I’ve written a book and a manifesto to live by.
I live a simple life. It feels good.
I was properly thrilled to come third in the Sydney Living Museums’ Meroogal Women’s Art Prize in 2020, because third prize was having a solo show at the Shaolhaven Regional Gallery. The work I’ve made is mostly home furnishings inspired by the frugal and joyful no-waste mindset of the four generations of women who lived at the historic Meroogal house in Nowra, all of it based on the philosophy that they embraced to make do and mend. Everything I showed in this exhibition was preloved and reloved.
Recent exhibition
ClothFabric
It wasn’t long after I came to Australia that I started a business designing and hand-printing fabric. I wanted to make contemporary and natural fabric for people's homes, and I wanted to make it locally and sustainably. For me, continuing the tradition of hand-printed flatbed fabric production is more important than ever, in this increasingly digital world.
I started Cloth almost 25 years ago. Today my designs continue to be inspired by the Australian landscape and printed in small batches by hand in a tin shed in regional NSW.
All my fabric is available to purchase online or by appointment in my studio and workshop in Blackheath, NSW.
We sell by the metre, by the piece and by the bundle.
We also have a swatch service on request. For all things fabric, head to our ClothFabric website.
ArtWork
The work I make is inspired by the materials I use and the environment I'm in. The land, the sea, the plants and animals around me.
My art practice is where my textile designs begin, but the art I make is also very much its own thing.
Every art work I make begins with being curious, really looking, and then drawing loosely and a bit intuitively.
The aim is always to enjoy the experience of flow, and keep the work simple, and full of the pleasures of layering, colours and shapes.
Stock Room
Visiting the StockRoom is a bit like dropping into my studio when it's just been tidied up. Some of the works are early pieces I've held onto for a long time, and some I've made quite recently.
You can browse through ready-to-hang artworks like my hand-printed and stitched SweetSpot Loops, and Still Lives and Buildings and Sheds that were part of a group show about quarantine at Manly Art Gallery.
When it's hard to paint the clouds, we draw the mountains.
- The Imperfect Manifesto -
Making things makes me feel good, and making things out of the scraps that most people turf out to landfill makes me feel even better.
I save all my scraps, organise them into colour groups and curate ScrapCloth bundles of loveliness. These are ready to make into curtains or lampshades or cushions or anything else I can think of.
ScrapCloth
Increasingly people are experiencing that it's calming and grounding to take some time to make something with your own hands. ScrapCloth bundles can be used along with other fabrics - like old pairs of jeans or existing curtains - to make something with good old-fashioned slow stitching. It's a lovely relaxing thing to do and something of a lost art.
The Imperfect Manifesto
It was a warm spring afternoon when we wrote this. Sitting around in our backyard with a glass of wine, we were talking about what mattered to us, what we felt about life. What began as a bit of picnic philosophy became a set of guiding principles. For me, these are words to live by.
EverySevenDays
Every Seven Days is an impermanent art practice for everyone, designed to enhance our mental health, reduce stress, boost creativity and cognitive function, and strengthen our sense of connection with nature and community. In 2022 I partnered with MakeShift Creative, who put out a newsletter announcing each week's theme.
You don't have to be an artist or have any tech expertise to be involved. We've made a website totally dedicated to this project, where you can see the easy-to-follow guidelines and read about the science behind it all. Making ephemeral art in nature is a practice everyone can benefit from. #everysevendays2022.
Making things makes us feel good.
- The Imperfect Manifesto -
ClothBound
This is my first ever book.
It’s about my creative process over twenty years of designing and making ClothFabric. It's a labour of love that I worked on with a group of lovely and talented people.
ClothBound tracks the development of my work all the way from first images and notes made in my sketch books through to resolved designs and collections. In the book I tell those stories, champion the imperfect and offer up a modest philosophy of sorts. This is heart and soul of Cloth in 240ish pages, and I'm quite proud of it.
Collaborations
I enjoy collaborating with other artists and makers like Blackheath artist Simon Reece. Together we made a series of ceramic pieces inspired by the Arthur Streeton exhibition at AGNSW. Clay cups and bowls and small plaques to hang on your wall, thrown and turned by Simon and painted by me to reflect the sea, the land and the plants of Australia.
Rough Track
I live in Blackheath in the Blue Mountains on the Rough Track on 29 acres above the Grand Canyon. It's a place that inspires me every day.
When you stay in one of our two ironstone cabins, please let me know if you would like to drop ion at the studio for a chat or to see some artworks or fabric.
If you'd like a retreat on the Rough Track, click on the link below to see the cabins website and make a booking.
When you get right down to it, the essential thing is to do what you do with your whole heart.
- The Imperfect Manifesto -
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JULIE'S STUDIO +
ROUGH TRACK WORKSHOP AND GALLERY
325 EVANS LOOKOUT ROAD
BLACKHEATH NSW 2785
Acknowledgement of Country
We acknowledge the Dharug and Gundungurra people, the Traditional Owners of the land where we live and work.
We recognise their continuing connection to land, water and community.
We pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging.