Julie Skinner lives in Kansas City where she grew up with a large wooded area behind the family home. “A love of nature was inscribed upon my soul,” Julie says, “as I picked wild flowers in the springtime, climbed trees, searched for fossils, waded in the winding creek in summer and ice skated in winter. These were magical times.”

Adding to her love for the outdoors, each summer her family spent time in Canada surrounded by woods and water. “Every day was an adventure, filled with the wonder of unspoiled beauty.”

One of her first memories of creating artwork was sitting at her desk in fourth grade, using her crayons to draw a bunny. She first painted with oils when her high school art teacher brought in his own paints, a canvas board and brushes, set them in front of her and said, “Here, I thought you might like to paint something.”
“He gave me no instruction or help,” she recalls, “I just started painting. But he was right, painting is a pleasure that liberates my heart and soul.”

Though Julie has engaged in painting, sculpture and ceramics, painting with oils remains her favorite.

After college, she taught elementary school art. Julie says, “Children are free to draw what they imagine, before someone tells them that they cannot place the sun and the moon in the same sky. Their freedom can inspire us all.”

One of her most fascinating experiences was a painting residency in Czech Republic. Her studio and exhibition were up a winding staircase in the magnificent Cesky Krumlov Castle. Each day she walked through the cobblestone streets, up the hill, over the moat, through the courtyard and unlatched the door across from the castle’s historic tower (founded before 1250). As she painted, she would look up at the designs on the walls painted hundreds of years before, imagining fellow artisans creating mystical beauty.

“I have had seasons,” says Julie, “when I did not paint due to family activities and various survival diversions. But now I know, whether or not a brush was in my hand, I was always painting.”