Julie Crabtree, born in Nottinghamshire, England, holds City and Guilds of London qualifications in Fashion, Textiles, and Embroidery from Mansfield College of Arts, where she later taught. Her journey led her from England to Canada and eventually the United States, where she embraced various life experiences and skills, all of which now inform her work as a textile artist, teacher, and painter.

While primarily known as a textile artist, Julie's passion for painting has grown significantly in recent years. "Painting has always been a part of my textile creations. I keep a sketchbook journal as a working reference for my ongoing projects."

Julie’s work primarily explores landscapes, focusing on the interplay of color, texture, and the elements of earth, trees, foliage, sea, and rocks. These natural forms, shaped by time and extreme forces, offer endless inspiration for her creations. Her work ranges from realism to more recent explorations of textural abstraction. The erosion of nature over centuries inspires Julie’s desire to capture a sense of time and place, merging the traditions of needle, thread, and paint to express the essence of these landscapes.

Julie often travels with her sketchbook and camera, drawing inspiration from her surroundings, whether locally or in the woods and hills of her home in Vermont. She spends countless hours refining ideas, layering materials, and experimenting with techniques such as hand and machine stitching, shears, netting, painted and dyed backgrounds, distressed fabrics, hand-spun and dyed yarns, felting, and soluble stabilizers to create the desired effects.

For Julie, the journey of exploration as an artist is ongoing, and she feels privileged to have the ability to see and create during her time on Earth.