Today we’d like to introduce you to Julia Hill.
Hi Julia, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today.
It kind of all started when I moved to Los Angeles January of 2014. I had just been accepted to Art Center College of Design and my dream of becoming a full-time working artist had just come to fruition. I had been working in retail for over 8 years so you could imagine my excitement when I got the news. Retail to me was just a means to an end, I had been pursuing art on my free time for several years so this moment in time was pretty significant. Throughout the program at Art Center, I rigorously learned new techniques and facets to not only design but details that helped launch my career as a professional once I graduated. I went quickly through the program and came out in Fall of 2016 with a Bachelor’s in Illustration. This was kind of the marker for the new chapter I was about to begin. The moment that took my life as I had known it and directed it down a road I had always dreamed about. I started working in Surface Design pretty much immediately post-school. My first job was creating artwork for an entire collection of skateboard decks. Growing up in Southern California, there’s a large skate culture community so it was exciting to start creating paintings for something I had consistently grown up around. From there started my career in Surface Pattern Design. Primarily I was working in fashion creating textile designs for swimwear, activewear, and apparel. Over the course of 6 years, I’ve had the opportunity to create hundreds of pieces of art that have been used for home decor, lifestyle, stationary, apparel, specialty stores and some even made their way into space. My artwork in outer space? It was a dream come true. I’m going into my 7th year in the Surface Pattern Design world balancing my job as a Textile Designer while also creating a new body of work. Some of the companies I work with like WGSN, we get to build the trends and create something wholly new for the future, which is just so fun. It’s been such a beautiful path of growth and perseverance not only an artist but an individual. How you manage the ebbs and flows of your career to maintaining an excitement in your personal work, all the while balancing life as an individual. It’s something I really cherish and will continue to navigate as my career expands.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I like to think that any road you take for your career always has its obstacles along the way. I think that’s part of the struggle that lies within following and pursuing your dream. Taking on living in LA with its ever-climbing rent prices and trying to build a career as an artist and freelancer proved to be really difficult throughout my journey. Not much can prepare you for the type of wave you have to ride as a freelancer. There are several months out of the year that as a freelancer, work just isn’t as prevalent. You have to really be able to switch gears and use the tools you’ve acquired to flex that art muscle in a different way that supports your lifestyle. I think every struggle I experienced along the way really built a better understanding of what I needed to do next in order to get back on track. With all the challenges I experienced throughout the years, I think some of it needed to happen in order to catapult me to the next stage in life. A lot of our obstacles shape us in a way that is meant to drive us to be a better version of ourselves, more direct on our path. I know that obstacles are only inevitable so what’s helped me over the years is learning how to use critical thinking along with action to resolve the issue at hand.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I’m a Textile Designer and Illustrator. I specialize in creating prints and patterns for several markets like apparel, home decor, lifestyle, specialty stores, and more. I would say I’m best known for my textile work but really enjoy working and exploring my personal projects just the same. In my off time, I like to create abstract portraiture and expressive on-site landscape paintings. I think balancing the two create a nice flow that maintains my excitement for creativity in both areas.
I’m most proud of the artwork I was able to create for the astronauts working with SpaceX that was sent to the International Space Station. I was able to create work for them on two separate occasions, one in the Spring of 2017 and again in the Fall of 2021. I’ve been such a huge admirer of anything space related so when I was approached to create a painting along with some illustrations for the astronauts I was beyond excited. The project for the 2017 painting was fun and challenging to find the right medium and surface to paint on that fit the regulations in weight and dimension for space travel. The second project in 2021 was created digitally and was personalized for each of the astronauts on flight Crew-3. Each of these projects lived in space for about 3-6 months throughout its journey within the ISS. It was an incredible project to be a part of and truly a dream come true.
I think what sets me apart from others is that I feel I have a flexible agility to create types of work that expand across a wider range of styles. I really value the lessons I learned in school that gave me the ability to be flexible in this way, and it comes into use more often than not in my career. We are constantly inspired by history, the present, and the future and when you can create a story by the use of a certain type of line work, it really transforms the project. Creating work that encompasses what my client’s vision was and experiencing the excitement from them that comes along with it is so rewarding.
We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on luck and what role, if any, you feel it’s played for you.
I like to think of good luck as more of a “right place at the right time” type of situation. When I was younger, I used to think that some people just got lucky or some people fell into bad luck, but I think we are all handed certain situations and the way we determine how we go about it ends with an either positive or negative conclusion. I think utilizing tools in your life to create situations or connections to benefit your career might seem to be lucky to some, but normally have several threads connected to hard work put in over the years. All the bad luck I experienced throughout the years really were just challenges that helped shape me in a way that I feel bettered myself in my personal life and in my career and only helped to tackle future obstacles.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.juliahillart.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/juliahillart
Image Credits
@gucci
@stillherestilllife
