Artist Spotlight: Member Artist Juliette Ripley-Dunkelberger is exhibiting her latest ceramic creations in the upcoming feature show, Life Cycle (Opening reception: Saturday, June 24 from 6-8pm).
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Favorite Seattle restaurant (and menu item)
• Wild Fin fish tacos
Favorite Seattle neighborhood
• Columbia City
Favorite Pacific NW hike
• Twin Falls & Rattle Snake Lake
Favorite Seattle park
• Lincoln Park
Favorite style of house
• Northwest Contemporary
Favorite museum/galleries that gets your creative juices flowing
• Frye, Inscape building
What are your go-to comfort foods?
• Phad Thai and strawberry shortcake.
Where is the coolest place you traveled?
• Australia: Perth, Katajula, and Cairns.
Where would you most want to travel to?
• Fiji, Borneo, Venice (before it sinks), Ireland, and the Galapagos Islands.
What is something that always makes you smile?
• Small children laughing, my kid’s joy, and my dad’s jokes.
What is your favorite quote?
• Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you are right. You are what you repeatedly do. Inspiration must find you working.
What is the last book you read?
• The Neuroscience of Creativity
What book changed your life?
• Your Creative Brain by Shelly Carson and The Courage to Create by Rollo May
What is the last TV show you binge-watched?
• Ted Lasso
What movie could you quote by heart?
• Princess Bride
What is the best advice you ever received?
• Balance your being and doing. And make sure to laugh every day.
What is the worst advice you ever received?
• You should get a desk job, artists always starve.
Favorite studio tool?
• Hands
Where are you from and how does that affect your work?
• NW. I grew up in the woods and played there most days. I have always been curious about how the natural world works and notice connections between the minute worlds of leaf litter and a living forest ecosystem. In my work this has translated to themes of conservation, nature metaphors, and a constant interest in why and how things work.
Who are your biggest artistic influences?
• Carol Gouthro, Debra Fritts, Remedios Varo, Leonora Carrington, Patti Warashina, Tip Toland, and
What is your favorite medium, and why?
• Ceramics. It is a constant challenge and I am always learning something new. There is a deep challenge to communicating some internal experience into form, color, and texture that requires my head and body be in the same space at the same time. I am most present when working in clay.
Where do you find inspiration?
• Nature and internal world
When is your favorite time of day to create?
• Mid-morning on is great.
What motivates you to create?
• I can’t not. Really, I get cranky when I don’t get a chance to work.
How do you define success as an artist?
• Getting my ideas out effectively.
Does your art practice help you in other areas of your life?
• It is a way of processing life’s difficulties and joys.
How has your style changed over time?
• I have taken on more of the things I have been afraid of, like sculpting faces. And I have become more abstracted in my communication; leaving more to the viewer.
Website: https://www.julietteripley-dunkelberger.com/
Instagram: @jriplberger
Facebook: @Julietteceramicartist