After graduating from Carleton in 2000, I relocated to Carrboro and later Durham, North Carolina. While living in the southeast, I started my own bookbinding business (thank you Fred Hagstrom for teaching me about adhesive and non-adhesive bindings) and took continuing education classes at the Penland School of Crafts, Meredith College, Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, and The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In 2005, I was chosen as one of thirty contemporary North Carolina artists to exhibit work at the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh and at the Mint Museum in Charlotte, North Carolina. That same year I had a solo show at (the now closed) Branch Gallery.
In 2009 I graduated with an MFA in Art Studio from the University of California at Davis. While studying at Davis, I received the Robert Arneson Award, the Fay Nelson Award, two Freedmond Gadberry Student Awards, and a Graduate Research Grant. I was also the Graduate Coordinator of the 2008-2009 UC Davis Art Studio Program Lecture Series, in charge of coordinating, promoting, and planning the year-long lecture series. After graduate school, I was an Artist Fellow at Virginia Center for Creative Arts in Amherst, VA in 2009 and 2010 as well as an Artist-in-Residence at the Kala Art Institute in Berkeley, CA in 2010. Past exhibitions include: International Print Center New York, New York; Barbara Archer Gallery, Atlanta; North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh; Mint Museum, Charlotte; Branch Gallery, Durham; Lump Gallery, Raleigh; Cinders, Brooklyn; Pigman Gallery, San Francisco; JAYJAY, Sacramento; Richmond Art Center, Richmond, CA; Textile Arts Center, Brooklyn.
I currently live in Brooklyn, NY and teach printmaking at SUNY Purchase. More information about my current work and upcoming exhibitions and can be found on my website: juliaelsas.com