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j.w. julian

The Bee Line
I practiced law for 25 years, predominantly protecting elders and other vulnerable adults from abuse. I retired in 2014 and began painting. Covid prevented me from traveling in 2020, so I started writing and illustrating Ebby the Magnificent—Tails of an Elusive Baby Bunny. Ebby is the first book in my Elusive Baby Bunny series, but not my last.

5 year-old  J.W. Julian, camping

The Less Direct Route
Reading, travel, writing, and art. Those four things have formed who I am.

· Reading · Some of my fondest memories as a child were of reading the Wizard of Oz books and the Tales of Narnia. I loved the fantasy world that coupled animals and humans and books that made the animal characters the heroes, such as Yellow Eyes, by Rutherford George Montgomery, The Black Stallion, Justin Morgan Had a Horse and Where the Red Fern Grows. I also loved books written about Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, Harriet Tubman, George Washington Carver, and other powerful leaders.

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The Land of Stones©, 2020

· Travel · Visiting Western Europe’s most iconic cultural cities when I was 20 years old: London, Paris, Bruges, Delft, and Amsterdam, forever destined me to be a world traveler and visitor of art museums. I have traveled to every continent except Antarctica.
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 Writing · Since 2001, I have written travelogues of my adventures for several hundred friends, whom I dubbed “Vicarious Travelers.”

·  Art  ·  My husband John and I retired in 2014 and started dividing our time between a small village in Croatia where John is from and our home in the Pacific Northwest. At my husband’s encouragement, I took up painting as something to do in our retirement. Soon, I combined my two favorite things, art and travel. I began painting scenes I had captured with my camera during my travels and included them in my travelogues.
Covid-19 put a stop to our travels in March 2020. Since I could no longer travel and write about my adventures, I painted instead. This painting, which I titled The Land of Stones, resulted from this burst of creative energy.
In November 2020, I started writing and illustrating Ebby the Magnificent, Tails of an Elusive Baby Bunny. Ebby combines my love of reading, writing, painting, traveling, and being kind above all else.

The Long Way Around

I didn’t plan to become a writer or an artist. When I was in the 5th Grade, I wanted to be an attorney. No one on either side of my family had ever been one. I didn’t really know what it meant to be an attorney. I just knew attorneys were "important and powerful."
I wanted to be important and powerful because I grew up poor and powerless. I was a mixed- race child raised by a single mother who struggled mightily to keep a roof over our heads—even if the roof was just a canvas tent one summer when I was 9 years old. My mom was born in Tanzania, and was the oldest of 8 children. She was never given the opportunity to go to college even though she had good grades. It just wasn’t something girls got to do when she was growing up in that part of the world. Years later she found herself divorced in the United States with three kids and only a high school education. She taught me from an early age that education was the key to success and independence.
I was already a voracious reader when I started first grade. We did not have a television growing up, so I often read several books a week. I loved adventure fantasy books that united animals and humans, like the Wizard of Oz books and the Tales of Narnia. Books written about the thoughts and feelings of animals, such as Yellow Eyes, by Rutherford George Montgomery, The Black Stallion, Justin Morgan Had a Horse and Where the Red Fern Grows were some of my favorites. These stories took me into new worlds and fed my imagination endlessly. They were a comforting place to be. My other favorite books were about Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, Harriet Tubman, George Washington Carver, and other powerful leaders. Their lives were admirable and taught great lessons about courage, leadership, and resilience.
Besides reading, I loved art. My mom took us to free art classes in Denver, where they gave me paints and the freedom to create whatever I wanted. My painting phase did not last long because we had to move after my parents divorced. Art lessons were not a luxury we could afford. The first time I saw an original work of art was at a traveling art exhibition. The paintings depicting faraway lands and exotic places fed perfectly into my imagination of the scenes created in my favorite books.
As a university student, I took part in a three-month foreign exchange program in London. It was on a 10-day trip through some of Western Europe’s most iconic cultural cities: Paris, Bruges, and Amsterdam, that inspired me to be a world traveler and visitor of art museums. The art of Hieronymus Bosch, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, and other Dutch and Flemish artists fascinated me in particular.
I became an attorney when I was 24 and practiced for nearly 25 years. I focused on protecting the elderly and other vulnerable adults from financial, mental, and physical abuse. It was a meaningful and rewarding career. Along the way, though, I stopped reading for fun. I spent so many hours reading cases and legal documents that reading became a chore, an obligation. To entertain myself after a long day of work, I turned on the television instead of opening a book. Ugh.

 

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J.W. Julian "kicking back" in her first legal job in Alaska as a summer intern
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  J.W. Julian surrounded by Indian art in her law office.

When I wasn’t working, though, I traveled extensively. Travel is and will always be one of the major highlights of my life. It was the first thing I blocked out of my schedule at the beginning of each year. I have been all over the world, in no particular order: India, Tanzania, Kenya, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, China, Japan, Cambodia, Malaysia, Egypt, Germany, Bulgaria, Honduras, Spain, Italy, and many more. For over 20 years, I sent travelogues describing our adventures to several hundred friends, whom I dubbed “Vicarious Travelers.”

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J.W. Julian with an elephant  in India
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J.W. Julian a snake and his charmer in India

My husband, John and I retired a few years ago. We fixed up John’s mother’s old stone house in Croatia and started dividing our time between a small village in Croatia and our home in the Pacific Northwest. With my husband’s encouragement, for the first time since I was a little girl, I picked up a paintbrush and started painting again. Soon, I combined three of my favorite activities: art, photography and travel.

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My last day in the court room
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My sweet husband and me in Pompei with Mt. Vesuvius in the background
Our house in Croatia, "The Land of Stones."
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Visiting the Ngorogoro Crater  in Tanzania, East Africa

In March 2020, Covid put a stop to our travels and forced us to stay in place. Since I could no longer travel and write about my adventures, I focused on painting instead. I studied the works of Bosch and Bruegel and finally had the time to create paintings, incorporating elements of their paintings and the world of imagination formed by my favorite children’s books. I mixed images from Croatia and Europe with the gorgeous Pacific Northwest and added a bunch of creatures, some real, some not. The painting above "The Land of Stones," (my nickname for Croatia) resulted from this burst of creative energy.
In November 2020, when our world was not only under attack by a pandemic, but by political instability, increased violence, and hostility, I started writing and illustrating Ebby the Magnificent, Tails of an Elusive Baby Bunny. I threw Ebby in the middle of The Land of Stones and told her to go on an adventure. Ebby combines my love of reading, writing, painting, and traveling.
You don’t have to plan everything you want to be. Sometimes, all you need to do is clear the path and let your imagination take over. Ebby the Magnificent in one form or the other has been coursing through my veins since I was a young girl.

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