Sculpture from Within
Julie Warren Conn

Artist Statement and Bio:  Since 1965 my life's focus has been creating individual, one-of-a-kind sculptures working originally in welded sheet metal. After ten years of making metal artworks, I switched to the reductive medium of carving stone, finding my true passion and medium for sculpting. In later years, after several life-altering accidents, I began having selected stone sculptures cast in bronze. My most recent large bronze, The Founders, is a nine-foot artwork created for Maker's Mark Distillery in Loretta, Kentucky, which was installed in November 2021. The six-foot bronze back-to-back figures are placed on a nine-thousand pound base manufactured from India black granite. Sandblasted into the oval base, designed floral and fauna forms related to the area and the Maker's Mark brand. With many large and small commissions throughout my career, I have delighted in working with clients to create a work of art which fulfills their vision while permitting me the artistic freedom to follow my dream. 
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My husband, Philip, and I moved to Lexington in 2005. Through the years, we have been enriched by traveling extensively throughout the world. Returning to the magnificent beauty of Kentucky is always heartwarming and exciting. When not traveling, I am in my studio in Winchester working with heavy-duty pneumatic tools generating lots of dust, while searching for the forms within stone. I am a firm believer in Picasso's quote, "Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life."