Farm Artist in Residence: Julia Einstein
By: Andrew Partridge, Raleigh City Farm Marketing & Communications Volunteer & Editor
As activity and springtime fill the air at Raleigh City Farm, we’re excited to welcome a talented new member to the Farm community – our very first Artist in Residence, Julia Einstein. As both an artist and educator, Julia is driven to help connect people to their natural surroundings and does so through her artwork that captures the beautiful essence of florals through a variety of expressive methods. We are also thankful to our friends at Jerry’s Artarama, a local Raleigh business supporting initiatives in art and community engagement, for sponsoring Julia’s residency on the Farm.
Throughout the growing season, Julia will offer monthly herbarium workshops where community members can create their own living documents of pressed floral arrangements to preserve their memories of visiting the Farm and gathering specimens. The artist will be offering other workshops to guide artists of all skill levels to better capture floral subjects with quick gestural drawings and other helpful techniques. Another exciting opportunity will be the chance for community members to follow the Farm’s social media to watch as Julia harvests inspiration from farm to studio and creates a body of work dedicated to the growing season - be sure to check out the #artistRCF hashtag for updates.
After living in New England for over twenty years and relocating to Raleigh in late 2021, Julia was happy to find the welcoming arms of the Farm community as a place to connect with her new home. Throughout her life, Julia has expressed a lifelong passion for nurturing people’s understanding and appreciation of the artistic world, as an artist, art teacher, and museum educator.
Julia describes her latest work as having a modern botanical style, with each painting starting with gestural lines and monochromatic colors before layers of surface beauty and texture are applied. As part of her residency at the Farm, Julia will be donating one of her paintings to the auction at the annual Harvest Dinner in October, as well as curating a small artist garden and arranging bouquets for the event. These generous and artistic contributions are sure to add an unforgettable atmosphere to the fall event and we eagerly look forward to seeing her visions unfold.
Although many of Julia’s artistic subjects have remained consistent over her career as an artist, her artwork itself has undergone clear transformations, shifting towards more intentional settings and backdrops that highlight the relationships between the botanicals and their surroundings. Even with this added layer of storytelling, Julia says some of her favorite subjects are often flowers that come from her own garden, where she composes color and forms with unique qualities to be featured in her paintings.
Julia’s devotion to floral subjects grew as she fell in love with the stories of 19th century botanical illustrators and their adventures of collecting, sketching, and pressing their specimens, some of which had never been discovered before. This way of delving into the natural world resonated with Julia’s own artistic nature, motivating her to inspire others in similar ways. In addition to her collections of books on flowers and botanicals, Julia shares poetry and other forms of self-expression to reach people who may have other creative passions.
While she strives to help people see their communities in ways they never have before, as she says, “with new eyes,” we are so eager to experience the creativity and curiosity that Julia inspires in us. Like her botanical subjects, she will no doubt paint the Farm in a fascinating new light for us all to enjoy, and we truly look forward to growing this exciting partnership together. Let’s all help Julia feel welcome in her new home!
Register for the upcoming artist workshops on our website here.
Learn more about the art of Julia Einstein on her personal website, or visit her online gallery.
Special thanks to our sponsors at Jerry’s Artarama.