The Daily Muse: HaggisVitae Studios, The Art of Julie Miller

Julie graduated from Tyler School of Art, Temple University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting & art history. After this, because of her passion for the sciences, she went back to school and got a second degree in cytology at Thomas Jefferson University. For many years she worked in pathology as a cytotechnologist—looking in a microscope by day and creating her “Vintage Fictions” pieces by night.

She has always had a love of vintage photographs, and especially those one or two you might find when looking through a box, that just make no sense and have no context to help explain them. It is these odd, surreal, alternate reality images she finds most interesting and wishes to emulate in her work. She has a love of science, vintage apothecary shops and bottles, ancient fairy tales, chemical glassware, and insects, and uses these themes often in her work. It’s her aim to pull the viewer into this netherworld of strange characters and unlikely settings—to create a world of the “might-have-been.”

She has designed many books, one of which is her own work, Strange Vintage Fictions. Her work has appeared in numerous groups and solo exhibitions. In 2012 her piece “Prudence Fenwick and Friends” won the purchase prize by the James A. Michener Museum at the InVision Photography Festival at Arts Quest in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. She also has a piece in the collection of The Cathedral of St. John the Divine in NYC as well as other private collections including that of Courtney Love. She lives in Allentown, Pennsylvania with her husband and two dogs.