JULIA VANDEVELDER

Longtime resident of the Hudson Valley, Julia VanDevelder is largely self-taught. When she retired from a long career as a writer and an editor several years ago, she met with an advisor who suggested that the way forward was to be attentive to her impulses and inclinations and to follow them.  Not long after, she bought some unused canvases at a garage sale on a whim and started painting in acrylics.

 

VanDevelder’s principal subject is the natural world, and particularly the Hudson Valley. “It’s no accident that the first American ‘school’—the Hudson River School of landscape painters—originated here,” she says. “I am inspired daily by the majesty of the region.”  Her aim is to create paintings that inspire in the viewer a sense of tranquility and wonder at the simple beauty of trees and fields, clouds and sunsets, light and shadow.

 

VanDevelder’s works are in private collections across the United States. She was recently the “featured artist” in Living Rhinebeck, a magazine for the Rhinebeck area community.