Creating Candid Moments: An Interview with Julia Malakoff

Julia Tova Malakoff was fortunate to be able to explore the arts before the digital age. Growing up in Iowa, where it was winter more than not, Julia used the indoor season to create. She wrote stories and poems, painted pictures and photographed her family and their life in a college town. At the most unfortunate age of sixteen, here parents moved from the heart of the Midwest to the capital of the South. Julia found her creative souls when she attended Virginia Commonwealth University where she graduated with degrees in English/Writing and Communications/Advertising. After a few jobs in publishing, Julia ventured off to start her own artist agency called, Envoy Creative Consultants. She represented commercial artists and photographers, landing them local and national level accounts. Fast forward to marriage and four children, Julia returned to her creative roots and began writing and painting once more.

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Annie Przypyszny is a student at American University, majoring in Creative Writing. She is the Associate Poetry Editor for The Adirondack Review and has poems published in Pacifica Literary Review, The Northern Virginia Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Ponder Review, and others.

Creating Candid Moments: An Interview with Julia Malakoff
By Annie Przypyszny

When I began my search for cover art for Grace & Gravity’s “From the Attic” series, I was struggling to conceptualize the best way to capture such a theme. The word “Attic” prompted several general associations: a dusty, cluttered room full of towering stacks of boxes; a study-like space, teeming with old books and astronomer’s tools; a dark, mysterious nook, haunted with secrets. None of these styles, however, felt right— they struck me as too dreary and antique for the nature of this project. 

I was deep into what seemed like a fruitless search, until I stumbled across the work of local artist Julia Malakoff on the Reston Art Gallery’s website. I was drawn in immediately by her art’s stunning colors and vivid textures, and I searched up her website to find more. It was there that I saw her “Peace and Love” Collection, and recognized another way in which to perceive “attic”: an intimate space of comfort, discovery, and home.

"Garden Gems"

“You don’t have to travel far to find little pockets of joy,” Malakoff stated in our interview, when I asked about her representations of domestic spaces. According to Malakoff, spaces of domesticity aren’t merely spaces of reserve and confinement. They are instead opportunities for capturing “candid moments,” for putting the ‘life’ back in still life. Malakoff’s depictions of interior spaces are no less bold and dynamic than her depictions of exterior environments, blurring the lines between inside comfort and outside exploration.

This framing of home as a free and creative space is a necessary concept, especially with many spending more time at home than ever these last couple of years. But it also sends another important message in terms of the expectations we place on women. Malakoff knows the pressure women often feel to choose between career and domesticity. For her, it’s about finding “a happy balance.” 

"Love Notes"

“Yes, you can do it all,” stated Malakoff, “but there can be different stages and times for things—and there was a chunk of my life where I wanted to give time to my kids.” Thus, after working as a representative for commercial artists for many years, Malakoff took a break to focus on family. 

But as part of that happy balance, Malakoff knew she eventually had to “get back into something creative.” She began taking courses in mixed media art, channeling an artistic passion that had been present since she was a young girl writing, sketching, and taking photographs in Iowa City. Malakoff fell in love with the mixed media form. “Here is an art process where I can incorporate everything,” she told me. “It’s the kind of art where your stories can grow.”

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Malakoff further explained her passion for mixed media, saying, “I want my marks to be seen, my own fingerprints … I want that texture to be in the painting.” She added that with mixed media, as opposed to more conventional art forms, “there are no mistakes — only discoveries or happy accidents.” To Malakoff, creating mixed media art is permission to play, permission to experiment --- as a result, one can feel the bright energy that went into making of her work when viewing the final piece. ​

"Scentsations"

The textured aspect of mixed media is especially important to Malakoff, due to its stimulation of the senses. As she suffers from Long-COVID symptoms, Malakoff’s sense of smell and taste have been significantly altered. She explained to me that exploring the “sensual” aspects of mixed media art is a way of reconciling with these symptoms, a way of “tapping into imagined sense” through the layers and texture of her work. Malakoff’s upcoming June show at the Reston Art Gallery, entitled, “Paper-Jewels” explores this sensual aspect of art, as does the live-stream course she teaches, “Art from Your Heart,” which explores the concept of synesthesia. “We started with responding to sound, listening to music, pretending that as we heard the music, we could see colors,’ said Malakoff. “It’s been fantastic, going through all five senses.”

"Essence"

​Along with the senses, Malakoff experiments with elements of writing in her art. Writing is another creative form that is near and dear to her, and acts as an important part of her artistic process: Malakoff told me, “I‘m always writing down my ideas and processing my art.” She also mentioned that she’s come to realize that “there’s so many different types of writing.” One of the types that she plays with is asemic writing, which she describes as “handwriting or character writing, but abstracting it so it becomes its own artform.” The layers of writing and text in many of her pieces adds to the textured, multidimensional effect of her art, cohering two creative forms into a satisfying whole.

I like to think that the “From the Attic” series is an effort to create a satisfying whole, a project that brings the work of different writers together into one collective, community-oriented space. Like the different textural elements of Malakoff’s artwork, each story in this series is singular and unique; however, even in all their variation, they fit together in one space to form a wonderful, unified picture, not unlike “Peace and Love 9.” 

In the end, it all comes back to home. I am thrilled that Malakoff’s beautiful piece has claimed its place in Grace & Gravity, a home that would not be complete without the artists who brighten its walls. Malakoff’s art has transformed our attic into a “pocket of joy,” making us all the more excited to explore the stories within it.

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"Sugar and Spice"

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A NOTE FROM JULIA MALAKOFF: Mixed media art is the ultimate outlet for artists who enjoy exploring artistic techniques.  With mixed media art, I can combine my love for photography, painting, drawing and collage all at the same time! I am drawn to the idea of layering concepts with imagery and texture, ultimately building visual stories. My Make Your Mark classes encourage students to explore mixed media techniques and learn how to develop their own visual communication. Students are encouraged to begin creating their own visual stories using the exercises and skills they learn in class.

To learn more about Julia Malakoff’s work, visit her website. You can also purchase prints, posters, greeting cards, and more from her online store.