Julia Burgess-Ballinger

Age: 41 years

Education: BFA, Old Dominion University

Married, 3 children

1 orange-striped cat

My first memory of art is when I was a small child standing in the ruins of a Mayan temple staring at the painted face of a were-jaguar in the heat of the Mexican jungle.  But my path to other worlds was truly laid when, at 9 years old, I attended a slide presentation by Frank Kelly Freas at the public library. I saw my future in the liquid eyes of his aliens, having no idea then what Mr. Freas would come to mean to the world of fantasy and science-fiction.

I was raised in a spooky old Victorian house by two very creative librarians who fed my imagination-perhaps too much.  At 11 years old, they gave me my first Faeries book by Brian Froud and that sealed the deal.

I later travelled to Engand with my family for a four week bike ride through the countryside.  It was on the South Downs in a small church that dated to the 700s AD that I first came face to face with the image of the Green Man.  I would learn on that trip, and on another a few years later to the mystical Aran Islands of Galway, the closeness of man and nature spirits.

I received my Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Old Dominion University and from there, sensibly, went into Museology, all the while painting fantasy in my spare time.  It was after the birth of my third child that I returned full time to my art and my life-long love of fantasy.  I maintain a studio in the historic district of Olde Towne in Portsmouth, VA where I was born and raised.

My time at the Chrysler Museum of Art opened me up to the work of the Pre-Raphealites and Neo-Classicists and my favorite, Art Nouveau.  They hold equal sway in my creative process with the likes of Freas, Franzetta and Boris Valejo.  I take them all with me now as I do the green pastures of the British countryside and the faded faces of Mayan were-men through my journey into color and magic.