Julia Douglas

Julia creates mixed media objects and screen-prints from her studio in East Lothian, Scotland.  For 7 weeks, over June and July 2010, she will be Artist in Residence in Timespan creating an exhibition (open 21st August – 10th October 2010) and a publication.

She has an unquenchable passion for the home and the relationship people have with the objects they put in them to make them their own, and has been researching this subject for inspiration continuously since graduating eleven years ago.

Timespan Exhibition

For this residency, Julia plans to focus her attention on the history of Sutherland crofts and the crofter’s lifestyle. She aims to share some of the stories gathered about their lives by pondering the relationship they had with their homes and the objects they put in them, and playfully transforming these into mixed media artworks. One of the areas she will explore is the multitude of domestic chores, which were part of daily life in the croft, including: washing, cooking, cleaning, preparing stock feed, spinning, mending creels, knitting clothes, knitting the Helmsdale Gansey pattern for the fishermen, mending and darning and personal hygiene. She will construct an installation in the gallery and a visually stunning book packed with inspirational images and snippets of gathered stories.

Because crofter’s lives were both ruined by and dependent on sheep farming, wool will be the main material used for this installation, using processes such as knitting and felting to create the works of art. Julia hopes to work with enthusiastic members of the knitting group, who meet on a weekly basis in Timespan, to help her create some of the installation.  She will also invite children from Helmsdale Primary School to work with her and the knitting group to create part of this installation. This cross-generational collaboration will not only help to develop closer relationships between the generations but also allow the knitting group to hand down some of their traditional skills to a younger generation, keeping these skills alive.

More about Julia Douglas

Julia is an award-winning artist and has exhibited extensively over the past eleven years. She is currently being featured in craftscotland’s, The C Word advertisement, showing in international cinemas and on Scottish TV and, after being voted as one of ‘The brightest and best Future 500 rising stars’ by Courvoisier in The Observer in 2007, is now co-curating an exhibition for the Hannah Maclure Centre in Dundee (July – August 2010) with several other Scottish Future 500 winners. Julia is also opening an online shop this autumn at www.baffie.co.uk. Baffie will sell gifts and treats for a comfy home, carefully selected and ethically sourced from independent designer/makers, small businesses and co-operatives.