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| 9/7/2009 6:00:00 AM | Email this article • Print this article |
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Journal/Hope Nealson
Julia Kelly holds the 2010 National Public Radio calendar that contains an illustration of a fabric collage piece she created called “Stopping for Coffee.” Kelly was one of 14 artists chosen from across the nation to be featured in the fundraising calendar to “depict their personal connection and relationship to NPR.” |
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Kelly's art wins spot on National Public Radio calendar
Hope Nealson
Journal Staff Writer
From across the nation, 14 artists - one from Dolores - were chosen to display a piece of their work on National Public Radio's 2010 calendar.
As a result, Julia Kelly's depiction of getting her morning coffee at the Silver Bean drive-through window in Cortez will grace June.
The fabric collage illustrator has been creating art for years, but it wasn't until recently that she honed a personal style that is getting her noticed in the freelance illustration field.
"You want a signature style - a brand - so art directors will think of you," she said. "I'm kind of amazed I'm getting my break in the middle of a down economy, but you still need magazines and curriculum."
Kelly, a graduate of Fort Lewis College's art program, said it was through trial and tribulation that she eventually chose fabric collage for its versatility.
"I basically have messed up every other medium known to man," she said. "And my instructors would agree with me. I was a horrid painter. I'd do pen and ink and get 75 percent through and smear it."
Kelly seems to be on the illustration fast track though. Last week at a Los Angeles children's book conference, her portfolio got the attention of a publisher who commissioned her for a job. NPR found her work in a "source book," a "yellow pages for freelance illustrators," according to Kelly.
The art director contacted her and asked her to submit a work, with the NPR logo in a scene that depicted her personal connection with NPR.
For Kelly, that was listening to NPR talk radio on her 45-minute drive down McElmo Canyon once a week to teach art to Navajo and rural ranch kids at Battle Rock Charter School - after stopping at the drive-through window of an Airstream trailer that is Silver Bean in Cortez.
She called the scene from her car "Stopping for Coffee."
Since winning the honor last March, it's business as usual. Kelly just mailed 50 postcards featuring her work to children's publication directors in hopes of securing more work since her six-year stint with Battle Rock ended due to the elimination of its art program.
Kelly said she wouldn't mind another teaching job in art, since her two girls, 11 and 15, are getting older and she has more free time.
"You're in the studio for five hours a day, and you kind of go bonkers," she said.
Kelly said in Dolores, where they've lived 14 years, she has a reputation for going above and beyond on her daughter's costumes - like skirts with French knots and various balls hanging off.
"My girls always do the sock hop," she said. "They know me around there as the poodle skirt maker."
The majority of Kelly's work consists of illustrations for educational publishers, but she is contacting editorial and design departments for things like book jacket covers and greeting cards.
"I do a little gallery work, but it's more like an after thought," she said, although her embroidered and sewn fabric collages have been shown in the Cortez Cultural Center and the Durango Arts Center.
Her subjects are numerous - from nature to taking a ride on the bus. To get the right view, she takes lots of photos; something that has brought her some strange looks while she shoots scenes from the bus, or drive-through.
"It's kind of like 'when in Rome,'" she said. "If my husband and kids are out mountain biking, I'll go along and take my sketch book and camera."
Kelly enjoys cutting scraps of material and putting them back together in a beautiful scene.
"As a kid, I would beg my mom for (fabric) scraps," she said, adding it utilizes her art background too.
To view Kelly's work and portfolio, visit www.moonflowerstudio.biz. The calendars can be found in the NPR Shop at www.shop.npr.org and are used by NPR member stations across the country for fundraising.
Reach Hope Nealson at hopen@cortezjournal.com.
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