Julie Lewis

Bio

Finding a way to bring classical literature, scripture, poetry, music, and opera to life in a visual way has been very satisfying for me as an artist. As I write this, I can attest that there is no other artist creating art in this way. Some artists paint on top of novel pages or music sheets, some super impose a photograph on top of words, but none like my unique method of sculpting text or music to fit the subject, giving it dimension. I started out as a visual learner, an artist. I imagine I hadn’t any choice in the matter from the time I was small and remembered how my name looked, not so much how it was spelled. Letters and words to me have always been more than a language. They are shapes. I probably read much slower than most people because I am distracted by how words look — some are very pretty, some not as much. But I love them all. I would even look at a page of print and try to make an image out of the random white spaces. Words are language which is amazing in itself, then there being a way to communicate precisely by handwriting a series of “letters” to be come words and words become stories, become messages, become communication. A miracle! In working as a graphic designer, I am required to work numerous hours to perfect the look and visual aesthetics of an ad layout, logo, trade show exhibit, etc. I can fuss relentlessly on the kerning and spacing, fonts choices and weights; Light, Roman, Bold, Italic, San Serif vs Serif, on and on. There came time many years ago when I wanted to go further. It was more of something I wanted to do for myself and I knew this wasn’t something I would use in commercial art. I wanted to use it in fine art, on a canvas. I feel art should have an emotional connection and I wished to create that deep connection to the viewer of my artwork. Over the past years I strive to refine my own unique style with flowing typography and music bars. I finally landed some good results from my art studies using my theories on Sculpted Text and Sculpted Music. It is a direct influence from my career as a graphic designer, my love for typography and the world’s love for classical music and literary arts. Combined on canvas with paint, I feel I have found something very moving to me and to those who view my art. The text or music within my artistic subject matter is from beloved literature, novels, poems, song lyrics, music and Biblical scripture. We all love to read a wonderful story. This is a tribute to those wonderful stories and other articles of writing and music that; encourage, remind, inspire.