Julie Longacre, BFA, draws her inspiration from the world around her. Known for her historic landscape and documented illustrations within the communities she resides, she divides her time between two studios: one located in the rolling hills of Eastern Pennsylvania where the farms and historic landscape have given her ample subjects to paint and much joy in the interim. The other is a historic seaside cottage located on the scenic island of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Longacre's versatility is apparent, working in a variety of mediums and styles from a subjective venue to the whimsical, surreal, capturing the light of the magic hour for her impressionistic compositions. Fondly known, most of her 50 year career as, "artist of the people," The documentation continues.

From Candace Perry, Curator
Schwenkfelder Library and Heritage Center

Her passion for painting has attracted the attention of a wide audience. In her familiar surroundings she is fondly known as an artist of the people. She not only draws her inspiration from local landscape, but returns her scenic portraits back to communities to raise money for charity.

Julie's Berks County, home is surrounded by the rolling hills, farmlands and forests of southestern Pennsylvania. From an early age these surroundings influenced her artistic development. After completing her Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree at Bethany College, Lindsborg, Kansas, she began a career as a fine artist, first working in Williamsburg, Virginia before settling in Pennsylvania where she established her name among the artists of the mid-Atlantic states. Awards and exhibitions soon gave way to the commissions that remain the major portion of her work today.

She is comfortably proficient working in any medium, whether it be watercolor, oil or acrylic. Her preference of medium depends on the effect she wishes to achieve. Her studios are set up with a designated area for each medium, allowing her to move from one to the other with ease. She has several paintings in progress at any given time.

The majority of her work is realistic and subjective in nature, leaning to impressionistic style in various compositions, reveals her pleasure playing with color, seeking the light of those magic hours the impressionists so loved to capture. After years of painting and filling her sketchbooks with realistic images, she enjoys creating compositions from memory, bending reality with a bit of abstraction. She classifies these under the heading of Colonial Surrealism, a term she invented in 1980. She gives whimsical names to some of these series like Sunset Memoirs, The Hills of Blue Moon and her new collection "Moonlight Memoirs."

As you journey through this web site, you will notice that Julie's paintings encompass a variety of subjects and styles, moods and color forms, but one thing is for sure, she has not lost her love for painting, nor has she forgotten her roots. Although her home today, remains in Pennsylvania, growing up, she spent her summers in Seeleys Bay, Ontario. There she found a love for the Canadian landscape and in 1998 established a second studio home in Port Hood, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.