Meet Julia Speer: Creative, Emotional Explorer & Radical Self-acceptance Advocate

We had the good fortune of connecting with Julia Speer and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Julia, what inspires you?
I’m inspired by other emotional risk-takers like myself. People who are willing to be vulnerable. People who lean into their own fear and discomfort to show up in their fallible, authentic, messy human self. People who are not afraid to make mistakes. People who, when they get their asses kicked, they pick themselves up, knock the dust off, bandage their wounds and get right back in there. I admire that kind of courage. It requires us to be able to look in the mirror and stand what we see, both the beautiful and the not-beautiful.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
There are so many things I am passionate about. Visual art, yes, but also creating and facilitating women spaces. As a creative, there are many forms of expression that bring me joy. I love exploring different art mediums. Ceramic clay is my first love and I’m so lucky to have 2 kilns in my home art studio. I don’t throw on a potter’s wheel, though. I hand build. If I have the opportunity to incorporate natural elements such as bone, feathers, leather, and other materials like copper wire, that’s even better. I also like to make jewelry, mostly earrings. When I was teaching in the public school system my goal was to expose my young students to as many different mediums as possible. The art room is a great place to learn how to make more mistakes and to allow oneself to be who you are and are becoming. One of my favorite quotes is by Belgian-American poet May Sarton, “We have to dare to be ourselves, however frightening or strange that self may prove to be.” This carries over into the work I do with women. On a women’s weekend, after the emotional descent (like in the story of Inanna), women have the opportunity to integrate and anchor the work they have done with some form of creative expression. Both art and the women’s work for me are about the most important relationship we have, the relationship with ourselves. It is the heart, the core. Every relationship we have emanates out from that. The degree to which we love, care for, and respect others is in direct proportion to how we love, care for, and respect ourselves. Art and creative expression are a doorway to this relationship.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Some outdoor places that are not franchises. Freight in Woodstock comes to mind. It’s an old train station. We could sit outside and drink wine by the tracks, people watching and sharing stories. Probably the Civil Rights Museum, Piedmont park, Botanical Gardens, Eats restaurant down on Ponce, Virginia Highlands and Little Five to wander. Maybe the Aquarium and wander Olympic Park.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Women. Lots and lots of women. My crazy, banner-carrying feminist mom, and her sister, my four sisters, my daughter. Brené Brown and her work around vulnerability & shame. Authors Roxane Gay, Ijeoma Oluo, Rebecca Traister, Brittney Cooper, and more. My friend, Stacey, a black woman who risked being brutally honest with me about my white woman mico-aggressions and the harm it was doing. And so many other women who come willing to gather in courageous spaces and connect over those shame-eradicating words “Me too” – transforming themselves and each other. I’ve seen women who never saw themselves as artists or creatives find their own form of joyful creative expression, while in these mighty women-spaces, laugh and create and push back against the denigrating systemic partriacrhy. These women who have the courage to show up and do the work, remarkably leaving resentment and bitterness behind and create a life of joy. ALL of these things inspire me.

Website: www.juliaspeerart.com

Instagram: @juliaspeerart

Facebook: @JuliaSpeer

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCH-DmL7fi1IjRvmRa97fV_Q

Other: www.sagesoulsisters.com, www.msjuliasartstudio.com