About Me
Julia Kuo is the author and illustrator of Let’s Do Everything and Nothing and Luminous: Living Things that Light Up the Night. She is the illustrator of many picture and specialty books including the bestselling book RISE. Julia has created editorial illustrations for publications such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Economist. She has taught at Columbia College Chicago and at her alma mater, Washington University in St. Louis. Julia has been an artist-in-residence twice at the Banff Centre for the Arts and a 2019-2021 fellow with the Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry at the University of Chicago. She currently lives in Bellevue, WA.
More About Me
Most kids I knew lived for Saturday mornings, when they could turn on cable (they had cable!) and watch silly cartoons all morning. I spent my Saturday mornings at Chinese school with a roomful of children who also did not want to be there. My weekend really began Saturday afternoon, peaking on Sunday mornings. Sunday mornings meant the delivery of the Sunday newspaper - a bundle of boring adult stuff protecting 3 precious spreads of full-color comics.
The best page was always the first page, because that’s where Calvin and Hobbes was printed. But just reading Calvin and Hobbes didn’t feel satisfying enough. I was so captivated by the art that I needed to consume it somehow, so I developed a routine of redrawing select Calvin and Hobbes strips. Bill Watterson’s gestural ink was so integral to the feel of the strip that I found myself redrawing the strips bigger and bigger in order to capture those perfect lines. My parents had a laminating machine at their workplace, and I accumulated yards of laminated Calvin and Hobbes strips.
Years later when we were clearing out our childhood house, I found these dusty rolls. It struck me that I felt so connected to a storyline that had absolutely nothing to do with me. I was not an outdoorsy kid. Calvin’s woods were nowhere to be found among the chaparral of Southern California. I was as far from a blond little boy as possible, and my parents would have laughed at Calvin’s dad’s parenting style (well, they would have said disapprovingly that Calvin needed a lot of discipline). And yet these stories and drawings had so much power over me.
Perhaps that’s why discovering Studio Ghibli movies, along with other Japanese animation, was even more revelatory. I am Taiwanese, not Japanese - and while the two cultures share some similarities, they still have crucial differences and bloody histories. But these characters had black hair and warm-toned skin, just like me. They knew they were supposed to finish all of their food and not be wasteful - just like I was taught. And they ate delicious snacks that reminded me of the snacks I ate when I visited Taiwan. So I reveled in the epic fights of Gundam: Endless Waltz, explored the surreal underground world of Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, and recoiled at the cruelty in Grave of the Fireflies. These stories opened my world, not only through their fantastical environments but in their mirroring of my own upbringing.
And so I redrew the valiant stars of Princess Mononoke, the kodamas from Spirited Away, and the magical floating world of Laputa: Castle in the Sky. These animated movies laid the foundation for how I still draw many of my people today, because I learned that I could draw people who look and behave like myself. They forged the way for more diverse stories such as I Dream of Popo and I Am An American: The Wong Kim Ark Story.
But copying only gets you so far, and sooner or later you must tell your own story. It wasn’t until I started climbing that I found the direction I’d been seeking. I started rock climbing in a gym in 2014, and was immediately consumed by this individual yet social sport. As a petite 5’ tall woman, I loved this new feeling of being strong. Climbing in a gym was a gateway to climbing outside and spending lots of time in nature. The more I learned, the more independent I felt in the outdoors, the more empowered I felt to seek out more of the unknown. And my new hobby changed what I found beautiful. I was soon introduced to the world of red-orange sandstone and purple quartzite sprinkled with light green lichen. I learned that deserts are my favorite environment to watch come alive in the spring and that I actually love the cold, especially when I’m surrounded by only shades of white.
There is currently nothing more exciting to me than seeking out new adventures and finding ways to illustrate them. I did two residencies at the Banff Centre for the Arts, choosing to do them both in early March so that I could go on snowy hikes through the Canadian Rockies. I started documenting some of my adventures, like the first time I climbed outdoors in Taiwan at the seaside crags of Long Dong. I caught a glimpse of Mt. Denali in person and was so captivated that I began to dream about climbing a glaciated mountain. I learned that I love to learn about the outdoors, so I took several naturalist courses. And that I love to help other people learn about the outdoors, so I worked with the podcast Science Friday and even created a whole book about trees.
So to whoever’s reading: I would love to go on an adventure with you, and then illustrate it. If you are a research or sporting team in a harsh environment, I would like to shadow you and draw you at work. Ideal spots would be MacMurdo Station in Antarctica, Nome, Alaska for the dogs, even a base camp in the Himalayas. If you are a fearless rock climber open to a companion, I will belay you, draw you AND clean your routes if I can get up them - although not in that order. And if you want to toboggan recklessly through thick woods, Calvin and Hobbes style, I will also come with you, because I may have some experience in drawing those scenes too.