julie1brad

Hi, I'm Julie and I'm fascinated with art. I can spend hours on D.A....and I love browsing through art galleries. I'm hoping by being a part of Deviantart, I will be welcomed into your world and be able to create art on my own. Right now my art is my music and writing.
My goal is to put all of my songs to art--through either photography video, and digital art. I did my first music video to one of my songs, a song I wrote about my mother who has passed. It's called "November Skye". You can find it in youtube under Surrounding Sara. I am hoping to connect with artists, photographers, videographers here on Deviantart to help me learn, create, and mature as an artist.

I was the youngest in a family of 7. Both my parents were only into sports and put us all in skating and I was in two sports (skating & tennis) I liked tennis (actually I was ranked 2nd in doubles and 5th in singles at age 12), but I hated skating and the cold was not my friend (we lived in IL). I was the youngest and with 2 of my siblings already Olympians, we had no choice but to do what they were all doing. I love my parents, but I felt like I lived my entire childhood for them, when all I wanted to do was act and play music. I fell in love with music and film when I saw "The Sound of Music". In fact it was a dream come true that I was able to travel to Europe and actually see the Von Trapp home and dance in that little glass house. lol My artistic passion grew stronger, but I still was bound to sports. We had a grand piano in the home that was basically for looks...unless my parents were out I would jump on it whenever I could and play show tunes.

I was 11 when my sister died in a car accident on her way to see a band. It really tore my family apart. My parents reallllllllly didn't like rock then and associated all musicians with long hair with drugs/death. It was a miracle we could watch the Beatles on tv. But I didn't give up my passion. I used to beg my parents if I could go to an art/music/acting school but they refused and told me "that's where the weirdos go" haha My response was "BUT I WANNA BE A WEIRDO!" lol So I basically had to wait til I graduated high school to leave sports behind, and I bought a guitar and started putting my lyrics to music. However it wasn't til much later that I was able to perform in front of people.

My parents divorced and things were harder and so I went to work as a secretary. I unfortunately never got to take lessons or go to school for what I had a passion for.
I married and had kids right away, so I felt the need to wait until they were old enough for me to start seriously pursuing a music career. I eventually formed my own band in Chicago. It was a tribute to Fleetwood Mac and Heart. The band had a successful run for 6 years opening for national acts like Cheap Trick, Grand Funk, 3 Dog Night, Joan Jett and many more. I eventually moved out west and revamped the project, splitting it into it's own separate entities: Heart Alive (Heart) and Fleetwood Nicks (Fleetwood Mac&Stevie Nicks) In 2011 Heart Alive was awarded "Best Tribute Band 2011" by Vegas Rocks Magazine and Fleetwood Nicks nominated in 2014 and again in 2016. We perform both tributes nationally. My original music is mostly alternative rock, but I do write country, pop, and I'm a parody junkie. My first original cd "Surrounding Sara" album was released and is on itunes and available in most digital stores. I titled the album "Foureleven" There are 13 songs on the cd, and one title is also "Four Eleven" dedicated to my sister Carol who died. Carol saw Angels before she died. I also created a video for this song on youtube.
I'm currently working on my 2nd album which is a separate project called "Love Survive". The album is titled "Live Ready" and it is a concept album with 15 tracks. For more on Surrounding Sara Love Survive you can go to surroundingsara.com and lovesurvive.com

As I create more and learn to be an artist, I will be posting the lyrics for all my songs to my art, photography and video as well.
Thank you everyone for reading my bio and helping me to become an artist!
Julie