About Julie Ressler

When I read biographies, I want to know “why” and if that person gained or lost by being interesting enough for anyone to want to read about that life. I am only interested in the “who, what, where, when” if it illuminates a lot of the “why”. To choose art is to understand things differently than other people, otherwise anyone could do it. This difference separates and isolates. What makes that aloneness worth it? Why not just be ordinary? Well, almost any of the artists I have known, myself included, look faintly puzzled or pained, amused, angry, resigned but answer uniformly and reliably, “ I just can’t do that. I have to be me. I just have to do this thing”

People tell me I have a joyous palette. I do. Color has power that is beyond understanding until you see its effects. The Fauve Landscape Exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 1991 was a perfect example of this transforming power. The night was bitterly cold and rainy. By some miracle we had found parking on the street and traffic had not been terrible, but we were all really uncomfortable and exasperated by the time we got rid of our coats and umbrellas. My husband, a stoic museum-goer, even at the best of times was with people he did not care for and the evening was looming into never-ending tedium for him. I could see it clearly. He was just about to not say a word.

We navigated the brackish, beige stairs to the second floor. We turned the corner. Instantly we were seized by the fabulous reds and oranges, blues and brilliant yellows, turquoise and purples that these men made into their joyous palettes that had caused them to be called wild beasts or Les Fauves in the early 1900s. Their passion grabbed our faces and kissed our eyes over and over again until we were soon gasping, “Look at that! Have you ever seen that color before?” We were pulling each other from painting to painting. Very soon, our tired faces were transformed to that special clarity of wonder and renewal of being in color.

As an artist I think that “Reality” is misunderstood. People say, “Get real!” They mean see the worst, say what’s hurtful, paint what’s ugly. Is despair more real than joy? I prefer to embrace the sunrise, smell the flowers and love my family. I believe in a vigorous life process. “The Scream” by Edvard Munch, Picasso's “Guernica” and other great works give us an awakening and a frame of reference we didn’t have before they were painted, but if a person hangs pain and misery on the walls, if those negative sensations greet even the most fleeting glance, then that becomes the awareness. If there are positive luminous images then our thoughts are refreshed. We should examine our focus. Is the glass half full or is it half empty?

View the organizations that I have supported. View photo credits.