We recently connected with Juliana Purcell Sheehan and have shared our conversation below.

Juliana Purcell, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

Being an artist was chosen for me and made clear early on,. As a baby, my first word was the color was ‘yellow’ and my second was ‘blue’., from then on instead of basic words like “ball”, I was learning colors. Abnormal because no one in my family was an artist. As a kid growing up, I remember always knowing how I wanted to run my career as an adult. I had a business plan at 7 years old and was constantly drawing.

Juliana Purcell, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I started doing pop-up and local community events from a very early age, maybe 10 years old. I got involved with fundraisers, events locally and then worked my way up to urban and international shows. I went to thousands of gallery openings of other artists and learned as much as I could. Recently I have been showing my work in galleries as well as international shows. Receiving an invitation from several galleries to Art Basel in 2019 was for sure a highlight for me in my career, and so grateful for the opportunities and chances given to me. I currently have a large selection of Braille paintings that are for sale, but also open the door for pencil sketch and painting commissions, letting the customer pick the message and making it their own.

Art is often shown, expecting formality in silence and hands off, however this can be very difficult for certain people with different struggles. Thinking harder, I wanted to make a way to give people a place at an art show they can feel accepted. Thats when I invented Braille in my paintings! This was back 9 years ago. I googled it to make sure I wasn’t stepping on anyone else, and nothing even came up!! I was shocked- so then began my process to add Braille as texture in my pieces. This unlocked something beautiful, later bringing so many different, wonderful people into my life.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

When you have a vision, and you spend hours and hours, days, sometimes years on a piece no one has ever seen before its quite refreshing and exciting to share it with an audience, like a long awaited release. I also love teaching little kids about my work and explaining what braille is used for, then allowing them to feel it and ask questions. Kids especially are so thoughtful in their curious responses. Making work that moves people, opens new conversations and more doors for good things to evolve.

Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

I wasn’t aware from the start how much organizational and website work I would be doing daily, especially growing up in the 90s without social media, to today where it is everything to being seen online. I wouldn’t say I’m naturally good at technology, so I found website design, even laid out “easily”, to be difficult. In addition, today’s world is so much about sharing every process detail, but I am most comfortable working in private and quietly, not recording my daily life and where I am constantly. I guess I wish I knew more tech and photoshop related things prior to growing my company, because I didn’t realize how much it would be needed.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.SheehanArtwork.com
• Instagram: @SheehanArtwork