We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Julia Craft a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Julia, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

My step grandmother was an artist, and while we weren’t blood related we were very close and she was always so supportive of me making art. After dropping out of art school in my early 20’s I really struggled to ever make it back to art/start creating again. My step grandfather was a HUGE butterfly guy and always had the coolest books, he himself was basically an encyclopedia for butterflies, and while he didn’t have the hugest collection he had one Morpho that was beautiful that I made comments about every time I visited. A few years ago both my grandparents passed away within a year of one another. When my step dad went through their house he gifted me my grandfathers butterfly, and a bunch of frames my grandma had in the garage for future art projects she never got to finish. Considering I’m not his blood child it really meant a lot, so last Christmas I used one of his mom’s frames and made a multiple butterfly frame for him to thank him/give him a butterfly back. I probably cried about it more than he did but it felt like a way to say goodbye to both grandparents and give my step father something meaningful made with them in mind. It lives on their mantel now under a light and my sweet stepfather always tells me how pretty it is.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I started pinning butterflies when I was apprenticing at a salon a few years back, my coworker and friend Lily taught herself and I had always wanted to learn, she was kind enough to teach me. From then on I started doing scorpions and taught myself just from what I knew about hydrating beetles. Eventually I started creating my own heart shapes purely because I love heart themed/shaped things. A lot of my work is a mixture of my appreciation for these small creatures that affect our world so much. I’m also inspired by a lot of bugs different symbolism in religions and cultures. I do a lot of flea markets and am always hearing beautiful stories about what butterflies mean in peoples cultures or religions, or really personal stories of a person that a certain butterfly reminds them of. In a weird way I think it’s helped me connect with a lot of strangers on a deeper level, not all get it, I still get a lot of rude and strange comments, but I enjoy the banter. Scorpions how ever just remind me of visiting my grandparents in Arizona, the men in my family had some pretty impressive scorpion belt buckles and I think my work with scorpions just helps me feel a little more bonded to my family and all the memories I have visiting them. The rest of my work and a lot of my newer pieces I am working on this year are about loss, death, and trauma and have helped me heal a lot of themes going on in my life this last year. I think there’s also a little hope to my work as well, and a lot of it shows that you can find beauty in darker things or uncommon places. The main thing I really strive to do is just keep making bigger pieces, while I’d love to make it a full time job I’m just ecstatic that people enjoy my work and connect with it. After I dropped out of art school in my early 20’s I really struggled to find a medium or do anything creatively minus my day job as a hair stylist. Being able to find my medium in something completely different than how I started in the art world has been really refreshing and I just hope I get to keep doing it for a long time. I think there’s also an extra interest in it now too since our planet is really struggling, it makes what I do feel even more special to work with these tiny creatures. Knowing they may not be around forever makes me savor each piece a little bit more. My hope is with my work people will see taxidermy isn’t this evil thing, that it can be beautiful and connect us to a world we don’t get to interact with as closely, especially being in the city; I am starved for any nature connection. I hope to teach people too that most taxidermy people love animals and are dedicated to their preservation, and just wanna show these creatures at a distance you would never get to see when they’re out in the wild.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I think I spent my entire life thinking my art wasn’t good enough, or that it didn’t have a set theme or style, and that if I did it it needed to be sold or seen. I spent so many years beating myself up for it and having that mindset, I think it’s hard to make something just for the pure joy because we are so used to having to work to make something profitable. Once I started creating with out guilt I realized that finding my style was something that just happens with creating more and more work. And that my style will change constantly because of skill level and how I’m changing in my life. Enjoy creating with out thinking of what it has to be and just make art that feels good for you.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

Just meeting people who like my work, it sounds so simple and cheesy but it never gets old and I’m still shocked all the time when someone likes it or buys one of my pieces. I spent so many years abandoning art and finding it again has really brought a lot of enrichment and incredible relationships into my life. The most rewarding part though is that my 82 year old grandma loves my work and demands them, she’s my number one fan and expects at the least one butterfly per visit. She’s got some super sick wood paneling in her house and has a bunch of my pieces hanging around, next to all my baby photos.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://dollparts.bigcartel.com/
• Instagram: __dollparts
• Other: I have two instagrams, one is my main personal and hair page which has some of my work/more followers.

  My art instagram that is strictly for my art is @__dollparts with a zero instead of a o. My main one is @__dollparts with an o