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Episode 2 Julia Lynn Rose

Episode audio and synced transcript are available via Descript here.

Bridgétt Rangel Rexford: Hello and welcome to Art RADIO. Art RADIO is a podcast hosted by the Siskiyou County Arts Council located in northern California on the land of the Achomawi, Karuk, Klamath, Konomihu, Modoc, Okwanuchu, Pit River, Northern Wintu, Shasta, Winnemem Wintu tribes. We offer recognition and respect to these tribes and all others as we connect on Native land.

With Art RADIO, we aim to uplift the creative voices of the county through this podcast medium. With the geographical landscape being a large challenge of connecting with each other, the podcast radio waves will be the connecting thread. Our priority at the Siskiyou County Arts Council is to cultivate strong and creative communities in Siskiyou County because we believe the arts are a societal cornerstone that celebrates diverse cultures and a shared history.

To keep up with grant opportunities or our projects such as the art cart, subscribe to our newsletter by visiting our website siskiyouarts.org. S I S K I Y O U A R T S .ORG. Thanks again for listening to Art RADIO; have a creative day!

Today on Art RADIO we have artist Julia. Julia has lived in Siskiyou County for three years. Although Julia believes artistic mediums are infinite, she currently works in watercolors and oils. For the very first time in Siskiyou County, she’s offering expressive art classes this summer; more info on how to sign up at the end of this episode. Hi Julia, thank you for taking time to interview.

Julia Lynn Rose: Hi, I’m glad to be here, it’s nice to do this.

Bridgétt Rangel Rexford: Yay, we’re really lucky to have you on here today. So before we start, we’ll do our little grounding exercise so we can all slow down and take a pause. Let’s stop whatever we’re doing; go ahead and breathe and turn your attention inward. Notice body sensations, get curious and interested in what’s going on in your body. Start with your head and go down to your neck, shoulders, torso, hips, and then your legs and feet. As you sit here, do you notice any emotions? Do you feel joyous? Do you feel at peace? Do you feel a little nervous? Go ahead and make room for any images that may want to pop up in your brain. Listen into your thoughts and invite any adjustments to make yourself comfortable. And now let’s do just a ten second sort of breathing together exercise, and I will bring you up back in and I’ll count down from 10. Here we go.

3, 2, 1. Okay. Well, let’s begin. Okay Julia, how was your day today?

Julia Lynn Rose: I’m having a great day, actually. I’ve been up real early to take my dog for a walk while it was still cool outside; went over to the gateway, Gateway Trails, which is close to my apartment. And throw the ball for her; we placed fetch for about a half an hour to an hour and so I started my day that way. So, so far so good.

Bridgétt Rangel Rexford: That sounds great. What kind of dog do you have?

Julia Lynn Rose: She is a bull terrier mix. She has some pit bull in her and another breed, I’m not sure what, but she’s 50 pounds, brown and white coloring. And she’s just a great dog.

Bridgétt Rangel Rexford: That’s adorable. Thanks for sharing about her. Where do you live right now?

Julia Lynn Rose: I live in Mount Shasta right now. I’ve been for three years and I moved here from Chico. I’ve been visiting the Mount Shasta area for 30 years; camping, I would come up here and camp on the mountain or I’ll go camping at Stewart Springs. And I finally made the decision to move here. I love it here.

Bridgétt Rangel Rexford: It’s great to have you here. What landmarks are your favorite to visit?

Julia Lynn Rose: My favorites in Siskiyou County? I have several; Dead Falls Lake, you can get to it by the Pacific Crest Trail, it’s in the Eddies, it’s I think one of my most favorite hikes, has the best wild flowers of any, any place that I have been in Siskiyou area. I love Lake Siskiyou; I go there daily with my dog because she’s a really good swimmer and we’re both good swimmers. And Castle Lake is a favorite. I go there and not only in the summertime, but I go snowshoeing across the lake in the wintertime. I love McCloud Falls, the lower, the upper and the middle. I’ve actually gone swimming in the middle falls and I can, and I can tell you that it’s the coldest water I’ve ever been in my entire life.

Bridgétt Rangel Rexford: Oh my gosh.

Julia Lynn Rose: It’s very cold.

Bridgétt Rangel Rexford: Wow. How long did you stay in it?

Julia Lynn Rose: Not very long, enough to… I dove off of a rock right down to where the falls came down and enough to just swim around and get back out of the water. And that was enough.

Bridgétt Rangel Rexford: My gosh. Have you, do you remember the first large body of water that you swim in?

Julia Lynn Rose: The first large body of water I swam in was the ocean, the Atlantic Ocean in New York which is where I’m originally from, I’m from Long Island.

Bridgétt Rangel Rexford: Wow. That’s exciting. When you, whenever you visit somewhere outside of Siskiyou County, what does it feel like once you come back into county lines?

Julia Lynn Rose: It’s a relief. I love going other places visiting other beautiful places. But when I come back here, I feel a relief of, from the traffic of going in other places and relieved and to have cleaner air, not always the cleanest; right now we have a forest fire. So we have a little bit of smoke, but generally speaking, the air quality here is much better. I feel a very deep connection to nature in Mount Shasta and it’s a deep sense of coming home whenever I come back and I appreciate being able to drink untreated water out of the tap, which I’ve never had anywhere else before.

Bridgétt Rangel Rexford: That’s very true. I never had it either and the water runs so cold, which I really appreciate in the summertime.

Julia Lynn Rose: Yes.

Bridgétt Rangel Rexford: It’s refreshing and revitalizing. How is the art scene right now and where do you feel that you fit in?

Julia Lynn Rose: The art scene right now, in my opinion, is coming back from COVID-19 just like the rest of us. For the past year most shows in galleries have been virtual, which actually it’s turned out better than some of us thought that it would be, but not the same as being there in real person. And because of COVID-19, there were no receptions. So that was a disappointment, but you still had shows. Liberty Arts Gallery is an example that they’ve had shows gone on for this past year without stopping due to COVID-19 and that’s been great. Just recently there are, the galleries are having receptions again; the SAA annual show is going to be in September and we’re going to have a reception. And I recently was at the Siskiyou Art Museum in Dunsmuir and they’re having receptions again. So, this is a good news for everyone.

Bridgétt Rangel Rexford: Yes. I think the Dunsmuir gallery is going to have an, a showing this weekend.

Julia Lynn Rose: Yes.

Bridgétt Rangel Rexford: That’s exciting. I hope it’s still going. If not, I hope it’s postponed to a day that we can all go, more people can go.

Julia Lynn Rose: Yes. Also for the past year, Siskiyou Artists Association, we’ve just been on hold. We’ve had a couple of meetings on Zoom and are now just going back to meetings in person. Again, we’re going to have our first in July.

Bridgétt Rangel Rexford: That’s so exciting.

Julia Lynn Rose: It is exciting and we’re going to have a luncheon and some type of demonstration. So, we’re all excited about that. And just recently, I started a meeting with a couple of local artists, a couple that you know, Marilyne and my friend Bea who’s the president at SAA. We’re meeting in her home, which we haven’t been able to, due to COVID, but now we are able to do. We’re all vaccinated and meeting in Bea’s home and painting together and sharing our knowledge and experience, and it’s been very rich right now. We’re all painting the same still life together. So we work on at home and then we go back each week and give each other constructive criticism, suggestions. It’s been great.

Bridgétt Rangel Rexford: It’s really important to find your your community and no matter how large or small, I know that sometimes I find myself complaining, you know, like ‘there’s nothing, that… there’s no one here, there’s nothing to do,’ but it feels like you, you made your own little group, you made your own little world and I think that’s really it’s a good thing to do.

Julia Lynn Rose: It’s wonderful. It makes all the difference, it really does.

Bridgétt Rangel Rexford: And Marilyne’s amazing. Let’s just stop and say that really quick. She is our current secretary and we appreciate her so much.

Julia Lynn Rose: We’re both secretaries. Marilyne’s a secretary…

Oh my gosh!

And I’m the secretary for SAA.

Bridgétt Rangel Rexford: Oh my gosh, secretaries unite! If you could tell me a little bit about your art; where you have shown or you… where you would even like to show.

Julia Lynn Rose: I have…I do watercolor paintings which has been my main emphasis for the past 20 years. I started oil painting again, just recently. And I also have expressive art classes. My watercolor paintings are usually… the subjects have been more varied in the past, now I paint mostly wild flowers or wildlife. Those are my two subjects that I have a passion for painting. What makes my paintings different than other watercolor artists is that I use very vivid, intense color. Some watercolor artists, they use more light color and I use very vivid, intense color. Even my washes are also intense color. That’s how I say I’m different from most, not all. Also some watercolor artists, their work is more suggestion. Mine’s more realistic. It’s not sort of realism, but it’s more realistic and that’s all that’s coming to my mind.

Bridgétt Rangel Rexford: So I’ve seen, I think a painting of poppies of yours before and a watercolor. And I think what I enjoyed about it is that the colors were sort of contained a little bit in their shapes, which for me personally, it brought me a little sense of comfort because a watercolor is usually very, I guess, I don’t know what other professional term to use, but bleed, it bleeds, it bleeds; it’s bleedy. And the way that you’ve kind of reigned it in was really different. And I like that.

Julia Lynn Rose: Yes. Each painting is a study, such as the California poppies, it’s the study of the of the flower because you have to learn it, the very minute detail of the flower and, and the different stages of the flower and, and the same thing with a wildlife. It becomes a study of the animal that I’m painting. So I get an education from from painting, my subject matter.

Bridgétt Rangel Rexford: Is there one subject that you’ve painted over and over again?

Julia Lynn Rose: Definitely the wild flowers and the wildlife.

Bridgétt Rangel Rexford: Yeah.

Julia Lynn Rose: Yeah.

Bridgétt Rangel Rexford: And the bright colors… and the intense colors. Do you feel like that is a reflection of, of you, of the way you go about life? Like the intensely, like a lot of life, actually.

Julia Lynn Rose: It could be seen that way. Yes, I think so. I’d like to live life to the fullest and I guess that could be interpreted in my art, yes.

Bridgétt Rangel Rexford: What does art do for you? Like when you’re consuming art, when you go to someone’s art and then it makes an impression on you or an effect on you, how do you, what does it do? How does it change you?

Julia Lynn Rose: Art feeds my soul. Art inspires me. It educates me. It gives me new possibilities in life. Art is the core of who I am. I love it. I can’t imagine life without it.

Bridgétt Rangel Rexford: That leads me to the next question; is being an artist a lifestyle or a hobby?

Julia Lynn Rose: For me, it’s a lifestyle. Absolutely. Everywhere I go, I take photographs of things for… that inspire my artwork. It could be a rock, I see this beautiful rock and I think, ‘oh, I’ve got a paint that rock.’ A tree or light going through the trees, a beautiful sunset ripples on the water; everywhere I go I see things that inspire my artwork. I have my artwork all around me in my apartment. My apartment is almost like a gallery between my artwork and the artwork of other artists. I love going to museums and galleries. I do it on a regular basis. We try to keep up on what’s new and what’s happening. My friends, most of my friends are artists. So it’s it’s a way of life.

Bridgétt Rangel Rexford: Thanks for sharing that. What is art for you; art to you? Oh, you already did what does it do for you, but what is it to you? Or if you could define it, somehow.

Julia Lynn Rose: Art is a visual expression of the creative… creativity of a person, whoever’s making it. Art mediums are in fact not just the traditional drawing, painting, sculpture, but it goes… it’s more far reaching -textile and photography, glass. People make art with garbage. They make art with bottles and cans and scraps of metal; and it’s… the possibilities are infinite. Art is a way of communicating the inner soul of a person to the audience. Art is a form of education, can be a political statement. Art teaches us about our history. Art teaches us about our cultures. What I would hope for other people is that they would find some beauty in it and they would also be inspired by it and seek it out as well. The arts: music, dance, visual arts, theater; they’re all interlinked and so important in our life. They need to be treasured and encouraged.

Bridgétt Rangel Rexford: Yeah. Treasured and encouraged is what we’re trying to do here, so thank you for saying that. I hear you have an expressive art class this summer. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?

Julia Lynn Rose: Yes. I have a master’s degree in art therapy and I have done expressive art classes since 2001. And I’m going to be starting my expressive art class here in Mount Shasta for the first time this year, this summer, August 24th. And expressive art is about self exploration through the art process. So it’ll be six weeks and each week I’ll have a different art technique that will help the students in the class express a certain aspect of themselves and their lives. For example, one of the sessions will be a mandala and it will be about integrating polarities in life. Another session is a bridge drawing which is about transition: where you are, where you’re going to, or where you’ve been, where you are now and where you’re going to. The last one session is going to be a treasure map. Some people call it a visioning board and you, you put images of what you want to create in your life: having, being, doing. Say, you want to learn how to swim and so you’d put images of, of yourself actually swimming in places you would go swimming and what you would do swimming and who’d you be with swimming. That’s an example of a treasure map. Yeah, so I’m very excited about it. Art taps into the subconscious in a way that can’t be avoided, you can’t prevent it from happening. And so it’s a very fast track to self-growth, if someone is interested in that, you don’t have to be an artist. It’s not about skill it’s about the process. So this will be starting for six, six weeks. And the time, yes, I haven’t announced the location or the time yet.

Bridgétt Rangel Rexford: Okay. If we wanted to keep up to date, where could we find this… more information about the class?

Julia Lynn Rose: You could call me at (530) 570-1325. That’s my cell phone. And if you have any questions about it, feel free to call any time.

Bridgétt Rangel Rexford: Great.

Julia Lynn Rose: I started oil painting again, and I haven’t done oil paintings since college, basically, since the eighties. And I stopped doing it because of the toxicity that’s involved in it; things have changed quite a bit. You can now get turpentine that’s odorless. The paints have changed. They’re making things in a much more safer way. So, it’s not what it used to be at all; it’s much better. And I started painting Mount Shasta. So, I have a new oil of Mount Shasta, which I feel pretty good about. And of course, more California poppies. I say that my oils are pretty similar to my watercolor paintings in that the color is very intense, not, you know, what, you know, washed out. It’s very vivid, intense colors just as the watercolors. And I’m enjoying that very much. And that’s what I’m doing with my artists friends; we’re oil painting together.

Bridgétt Rangel Rexford: That’s great. Is there any place that anyone can see your art? We do have a little what’s it called? Like a feature of you on the website, our own website, like siskyouarts.org, and it has a profile picture or maybe a portrait of you, and then it has the poppies and then it has a different type of flower that I’m not sure about identifying, but we have a couple of them there. Do you mind if we put more on there?

Julia Lynn Rose: Oh, absolutely!

Bridgétt Rangel Rexford: Okay. If you could send me, like, maybe since we already have two, maybe three more or you can say more than that, but that we can update our website with and they can check… people can check out your work there.

Julia Lynn Rose: Fantastic! I would love to do that.

Bridgétt Rangel Rexford: What is your favorite spot in the county to experience art?

Julia Lynn Rose: I don’t have a very favorite however, there are a few that I really enjoy and go to go back to on a regular basis. There’s a watercolor gallery in Mount Shasta, Snow Creek Gallery, I think. And then Bear Gallery in Mount Shasta. I go there on a regular basis. The Siskiyou Art Museum in Dunsmuir, and Liberty Arts Gallery in Yreka. Those are my favorites that I go to on a regular basis.

Bridgétt Rangel Rexford: They’re very trusty. I like them.

Julia Lynn Rose: Yes they are.

Bridgétt Rangel Rexford: Do you have a message of hope or encouragement to offer the fellow artists of Siskiyou County?

Julia Lynn Rose: I just encourage all artists to keep doing their work, whatever it is, and keep, keep the energy and the passion up. For me, going to galleries stirs up my creativity. For me, spending time with other artists stirs up my creativity. Keep doing things that feed your passion to paint more, to make your artwork, whatever that is, painting or sculpture or whatever you do. And don’t let don’t let the passion die. I know people, some people over the past year because of COVID stopped doing their artwork. And to me, that’s kind of sad. I’ve continued to paint as much as I could. Get back to it and don’t let it go.

Bridgétt Rangel Rexford: Great. Thank you. Well, what is another artist or group of artists you would like to give gratitude to?

Julia Lynn Rose: Well, I would like to give gratitude, to the Siskiyou Artists Association, which I belong to. We have in the past before COVID we were doing critiques a few times of the year where we have professional artists come in and critique our artwork. It’s very, very valuable, very helpful, very rich. It makes, it has made a huge difference in my life personally and as an artist; I highly recommend it for everyone. And I’m just so grateful for all those people who came in, critiqued our artwork. I’m thankful for all the demonstrations that we had. I’m grateful for the encouragement from other artists in the art association. I just… thank you to the President, Bea Duran-Whiteman, and all the other board members. It’s been such a pleasure and wonderful time to work with them.

Bridgétt Rangel Rexford: Now, this is a space where if you’d like to say anything else, you can go ahead and say it, if not, we’ll wrap it up.

Julia Lynn Rose: Just thank you very much for this interview and this opportunity to get to tell the public about myself that would not have happened otherwise. I thank… thank you very much. It’s been great.

Bridgétt Rangel Rexford: It’s been an enriching experience just talking to you. So thank you for being on here. Where can everyone find you? You said you have your phone number and you had given that out and then we have you at siskiyouarts.org/artist/julialynnrose. So you can find Julia’s work on our website. Is there anywhere else you’d like people to contact you or find you?

Julia Lynn Rose: I can be found on Facebook. My Facebook name is Julia Lynn Rose, and I think the number one afterwards in Mount Shasta. And I post my artwork as, as I complete it. So you might have to file through some other posts to see it, but it’s on there.

This September, the Artists, Siskiyou Artists Association will have their, our annual show at the Siskiyou Arts Museum and that will be a place where you can find my artwork as well. I know I’ll have at least one, maybe two, two pieces.

Bridgétt Rangel Rexford: Great, and will there be an opening that we can meet you at?

Julia Lynn Rose: Yes, there will be a reception. I don’t remember the date off the top of my head, but it will be in September. It’ll be advertised.

Bridgétt Rangel Rexford: Okay, great.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Art RADIO. Be sure to check out our Facebook page Siskiyou County Arts Council to see this month’s upcoming Art RADIO guests. We create a Facebook event page for each episode and each guest to make it easy to remember. Every episode drops on Mondays at 8:00 AM through various platforms such as Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and Spotify.

Arts education is an essential ingredient for creating a social arena where ideas and feelings can be communicated with, and without words, healthy human development, increasing self-esteem and self-awareness, developing creative, critical thinking, social, emotional, and observational skills. So we therefore invite you to join with us in playing an instrumental role in fostering the arts.

Siskiyou County Arts Council is a 5 0 1 C3 social profit organization. Tax deductible donations will support local arts education, creative social change, and community participation in social and cultural events. To donate simply click the green donate button on our website siskiyouarts.org. S I S K I Y O U A R T S .ORG. Happy creating and thank you for listening to Art RADIO.

Editing and production help is thanks to Aaron Levine. You can find him on Instagram at Acovado underscore toast. That’s the v and c of avocado switched around and then underscore toast. You can also find him on Twitter at Kabuto justice. You can also email him, jaaronlevine@gmail.com.

Big thanks to David Blink for creating our beautiful theme music. He is the current music instructor at College of the Siskiyous. You can find him on Soundcloud at soundcloud.com/davidblink. You can even go to his YouTube at youtube.com/c/davidblink. Also, if you just type them in in Google, great links come up. Enjoy!