JULIE KORNBLUM
www.juliekornblum.com
Julie Kornblum grew up sewing and doing needlework. She avidly pursued
her hobbies throughout middle and high school. This led to a career as a patternmaker
in the garment industry in Los Angeles, after attending the fashion design
program at Los Angeles Trade Technical College. Julie taught patternmaking
and sewing for seven years at Otis College of Art and Design.
She earned her
bachelor’s degree in art at California State University
Northridge, with a concentration in Fiber and Textile Art. Julie’s award-winning
work has exhibited widely throughout Southern California and nationally.
Artists'
Statement
My work is a combination of the immediate and the ancient. I like to take
a new look at old traditions by applying post-modern materials to the ancient
processes of basketry and weaving. As a weaver and basket maker, I feel part
of a continuation of a thousand generations of artists and weavers from around
the world. As a person in the 21st century, I am concerned with what we throw
away.
In the past hundred years plastics have facilitated marvelous advancements
in medicine, food storage, communications, etc; and have become a worldwide
waste and disposal problem. I hope my work will raise awareness of how our
plastic trash impacts the environment.
My materials are cast off, surplus, or waste: copper wire from the recycle
yard; audio cassette tapes that even the thrift store wanted to throw away.
Yarns and materials of unknown purpose somehow find their way to my studio,
and I collect plastic bags and bits of packaging that are trashed after being
used once.
These materials could not have existed either physically or conceptually
until the modern age. Physically, they are by products of industrialization.
Conceptually, the notions of disposability, one-time-use, surplus, and waste
are also modern inventions.
