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Julie Speidel with Nidaba Nidaba – 2010 Goddess of the harvest. Sumerian Bronze. 74“ x 18” x 8-5” |
Photos: Mike Urban
Where do you live now?
I live on a beautiful island called Vashon in the Pacific Northwest which lies just off the city of Seattle, Washington. My grandfather was a doctor in Seattle long before there was a medical school in the city. He found property on the island by rowboat and built a summer home there and now five generations of my family are connected to Vashon. We are a 15 minute ferry boat ride from Seattle and this 26 mile by 12 mile stretch has not had an appreciable population growth for decades. There are 200 foot tall Douglas firs here and the glaciers that passed through 15,000 years ago gave us many ravines that make this land sculpturally interesting.
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| Julie Speidel |
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| Local beach on Vashon Island |
Seattle sits between two bodies of water – Puget Sound to the west and Lake Washington to the east. Where I live now on Vashon Island lies to the west across Puget Sound. As a child, I lived across the other body of water, on the eastern shore of Lake Washington in a rural area called Medina. I did a lot of camping with my parents and brother and sister, traveling to the ocean beaches and Washington’s wilderness areas.
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| Bendis — 2008 Moon Goddess. Thracian. Bronze 89” x 16” x16” |
When I was eight my parents separated and four years later I moved to Spain with my mother and sister. When I was twelve, living in Mallorca, my sister and I would take long bike rides exploring the countryside of this Balearic Island. I saw my first standing stones there. My sister Marion, who was seven at the time, could fit into the short empty Roman graves or sarcophagi, cut out of the barren stone hills. I thought about how small those people must have been. I began to understand the difference in historical human sizes. It was an epiphany for me. My mother remarried and we moved to England. My step-father was a geologist and we took trips around the British Isles exploring the land and discovered many megaliths, dolmens and stone circles. I climbed Ben Nevis. The awe and wonder of the stones is still with me. The Ancients erected stones in powerful places. I seek out these sacred sites in my travels. To be standing out in the land, and to allow the sense of these sites to flow into me feeds me in a special way.
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Drachlaw— 2010 Ancient ring of stones in ScotlandCast glass & bronze 32.5" x 27" x 8" |
Did you receive any formal art training? Tell us about your education.
After finishing High School in England, I went to the University of Washington and went on to the University of Grenoble and studied French, and skiing. I returned to Seattle to study art at the Cornish College of the Arts. One of the major lessons that I learned as I ventured into making art my way, was when there was something I wanted to know how to do, I was drawn to artists and people in industry who could teach me the process I needed. From that, I created a reservoir of knowledge that I have continued to build upon. I have big full folders and filing cabinets bursting with information!
At what point in your life did you become interested in making art and was there a certain point when you decided you were primarily an artist?
I think I was destined to work in 3-D. As a child I always collected 3-D objects, little sacred treasures. Before I was eight years old, I remember going camping at Klaloch, a remote beach on the Washington Coast. There I saw a tremendous dead whale, with its ribs sticking out – that image has always stayed with me. Natural and manmade wonders are an endless inspiration for me. This was the beginning of my art. It took form with jewelry making. I started with thin copper sheets that I cut up and bent into amorphic shapes. I had made some jewelry pieces I wanted to see bigger, so I took a welding class at a technical college and made my first five-foot bronze sculpture. It was then that Linda Farris, a gallery owner in Seattle, had a healthy conversation with me about my goals and advised me to quit the jewelry business and get three sculptures ready for her next show. It became clear to me that making sculpture was what I really wanted to do. It still has that certain 'magic' for me.
After finishing High School in England, I went to the University of Washington and went on to the University of Grenoble and studied French, and skiing. I returned to Seattle to study art at the Cornish College of the Arts. One of the major lessons that I learned as I ventured into making art my way, was when there was something I wanted to know how to do, I was drawn to artists and people in industry who could teach me the process I needed. From that, I created a reservoir of knowledge that I have continued to build upon. I have big full folders and filing cabinets bursting with information!
I think I was destined to work in 3-D. As a child I always collected 3-D objects, little sacred treasures. Before I was eight years old, I remember going camping at Klaloch, a remote beach on the Washington Coast. There I saw a tremendous dead whale, with its ribs sticking out – that image has always stayed with me. Natural and manmade wonders are an endless inspiration for me. This was the beginning of my art. It took form with jewelry making. I started with thin copper sheets that I cut up and bent into amorphic shapes. I had made some jewelry pieces I wanted to see bigger, so I took a welding class at a technical college and made my first five-foot bronze sculpture. It was then that Linda Farris, a gallery owner in Seattle, had a healthy conversation with me about my goals and advised me to quit the jewelry business and get three sculptures ready for her next show. It became clear to me that making sculpture was what I really wanted to do. It still has that certain 'magic' for me.
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| Sambara in the snow 2005- The deity of supreme bliss. Nepal. Bronze. 9' x 10'8" x 8" |
I fabricate from bronze sheets. I also work in marble, basalt, wood and cast glass. The range of materials has expanded and new combinations have permitted me to realize ideas that are more ambitious structurally.
What is your current work about?
I have just been commissioned to create a patina-ed bronze baptismal font for a lovely church in Seattle called St Paul’s. The font will greet people in the entry way. It is the centerpiece of the newly designed glassed-in narthex. The church plans to fill their space with work by artists. I am also designing their altar.
It can be said that Nature is the manifestation of the divine. The font appears to emerge from the earth itself. It is an ancient form – it is amorphic and mimics nature. Natural shapes are asymmetrical. The font is a fountain and the water appears to come from beneath the Church. The source seems to rise like a stream or spring from the building’s very foundation. It reinforces the sacredness of the Church’s site, its connection to primal, life-giving elements.
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| Model of St Paul’s baptismal font |
Water is an inherent part of our human existence. It is all around us and within us. Our bodies are mostly water. It is crucial to our existence. Yet its presence may be subtle in our lives - we may be relatively unaware of this powerful element. The font repeats this concept. There is little sound of water to be heard, it does not dominate proceedings. Yet it flows through the sculpture, lives within the sculpture
When people ask me about my creative process, I like to go back to what the sculptor and painter Anne Truitt said as to how artists "spin their work out of themselves, discover its laws, and then present themselves turned inside out to the public gaze."
I continue to be intrigued with Totemic forms that I first experienced as a child in Spain and in the British Isles. They still speak to me. There is so much left to explore.
What is your workspace like?
I am fortunate to have an environment around me that helps me be creative. My studio is five minutes from my home – on one of the original 5 acre strawberry farms brought to fame by the novel set in the Pacific Northwest called “Snow Falling on Cedars”. Because I work in stone and cut some large pieces, I have my studio in a rural area. There are large metal outbuildings and an old barn – which I’ve divided into workshop and design space. I look out on the most beautiful field surrounded by firs. I particularly like it when it rains and I am connected by the sound on the metal roof to the world outside.
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| Speidel in her studio |
I have been long involved with the Seattle art community. I have been a member of the Board of the Cornish College of Arts for many years which has been a wonderful connection for me to the school where I studied. We have been working on creating a new sculpture facility for the school. I’ve been on the board of the Pratt Fine Arts Center and served as Chair of Public Art for the Seattle Arts Commission. I was also invited to be the curator for a sculpture exhibition at the Bumbershoot Festival and was on the board of the International Music Festival of Seattle.
It’s so stimulating to surround yourself with creativity and people travelling on a similar path. Sharing the artistic experience in its many facets offers great opportunities. There is so much to receive and give in this process. Deep and lasting friendships result.
Shimla – 2011Himilayan hill station.
Marble. 83.5” x 13” x 6”
Do you ever get stuck with your work and how do you remedy this? In the vast mix of materials available to us there is an endless capacity to take what you've done before and go forward. Each new piece builds on the piece before. This process helps keeps the momentum going for me.
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| Jarmo in process |
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| Jarmo — 2011 Neolithic village 7000 BC Bronze. 16” x 16” x 24” |
Do you have particular habits that you think support your art practice?
What I do is so stimulating. It’s joyful and fast paced. There is a lot of movement around me. I balance this with stillness. My home space strongly connects me to the natural beauty of the earth and the sea. I live on four acres on the waters of Puget Sound. We have a tidal estuary reaching out from our home. I go to the beach almost every day. It feeds one in a special way.
I walk daily and living on an island filled with beautiful gardens and forests is very enriching.
I have also practiced yoga for forty years. This is meditative and centering for me and has significant positive impact.
I also try to always take in what is around me. I think it’s a habit of noticing things. There's a kind of recording of objects in space that goes on for me – contrasts in height and depth and breadth. Noticing what is stimulating is part of my habit that feeds my art.
Where would you like to be in 5 years as far as your art making?
I would like to be doing exactly what I'm doing now, building on the work that's gone before.
Do you have any upcoming shows that you'd like to mention?
I have solo exhibitions at the following Galleries:
Gail Severn Gallery
Sun Valley, Idaho
July 1st to August 31st, 2011
San Francisco, California
October 6th to November 10th, 2011
The inspiration for my work is rooted in the power of travel,” Speidel remarks, and indeed, her sculptures assimilate cultural influences in a manner reminiscent of travelogue—organic and intuitive, not academic or preordained. Her work encourages us to make complex associations, but it delights as well in purely formal properties; color, carefully poised compositions, the natural qualities of bronze, glass, and stone.
Seen in a landscape, Speidel’s sculptures have a Zen-like relationship with the surrounding area, humbling themselves to the natural world while simultaneously enhancing it, amplifying its effect. When installed indoors, they act as oases of nature, exuding an enigmatic, earthly quality despite their manmade origins, as if in conversation with the organic universe. This, perhaps, is among the most remarkable aspects of Speidel’s sculpture; its capacity to engage in dialogue with the world--not only with its natural elements, but also with the whole of human history and art.
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| Speidel's studio |
You can see more of Speidel's work at:
www.juliespeidel.com
Gail Severn Gallery
Ketchum, Idaho
Caldwell Snyder Gallery
St. Helena, CA
San Francisco, CA
Winston Wächter Fine Art
Seattle New York
www.winstonwachter.com
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