Julia Swartz paints in the heart of downtown Lancaster. From her second floor studio and gallery above the Prince Street Cafe, filled with huge windows, she can see all the hustle and bustle of the city.
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But on the canvas, she's taken herself to a quieter, simpler place in the county.
Swartz's new exhibit, "Traditions," is a series of paintings exploring the Amish and their world: a stark Amish farmhouse next to a windmill; a row of men, all wearing hats, with their backs to us; a mason jar with a rose in it; a row of Amish buggies; a sprawling farmhouse and barn; the patchwork of farm fields that anyone who's driven through Lancaster County has seen.
The 10 oils have an impressionistic feel to them, with colors running and blurring on the canvas.
"I wanted to capture the Amish in a little less traditional way," Swartz explains.
Instead of painting faces, she liked the idea of painting the scenes she saw on country roads or at the spring mud sales: the shapes, the rows, the colors that always attract an artist.
"I am always looking for contrasts," Swartz says. "For sunshine and shadow, light and dark. I want (the viewer) to really feel a painting, to capture what it is I'm painting."
She not only gets lost while she's painting, but feels that she is in the work herself.
And that's what she's loved about painting ever since she was a kid.
"I don't know that I ever thought I'd become a painter. I didn't go to art school," Swartz says. "I got married and had babies, so I didn't paint for about 10 years."
After her youngest (of three) went off to kindergarten, she decided to take a class.
"I learned watercolors and I loved it," Swartz says.
And she was good. By the early 1990s, Swartz was showing her work at places like the Mount Gretna Outdoor Art Show and the Lititz Outdoor Art Show and selling a lot of work.
For years, she and her husband, Terry, would travel to summer art shows, packing and unpacking the van.
"We were wearing down," she says. "My dream was always to have a gallery."
About four years ago, she rented a downtown space for a while, found she liked the idea of running her own gallery and began looking at real estate.
"This building (17 N. Prince St.) was for sale and Terry and I were looking to buy," Swartz says.
But someone beat her to it. Someone in her own family.
"We were at Thanksgiving dinner and my nephew, whose dream was to run a cafe, told us he bought a building."
So about two years ago, she became a second floor tenant and Swartz says it's worked out really well.
Not only does she have the view, which she admits used to distract her, but she's got the benefit of all the cafe customers downstairs checking out the gallery.
"I was concerned that having a business, a space I had to fill would change my love for painting," Swartz says. "But it hasn't. I found I was more productive, I got a lot more painted than I did before. At home I would always get sidetracked, but when I'm here, painting is what I do."
"Tradition," by Julia SwartzOpening reception, Fri. 5-9 p.m.Cont. through Sept. 2Tues.-Fri. 10 a.m.-5 p.m.Sat. 10 a.m.-4 p.m.First Fridays until 9 p.m. FreeJulia Swar tz Gallery, 17 N. Prince St.397-8020. www.juliaswartz.com www.lancastercityevents.com E-mail:
jholahan@lnpnews.com
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