Air stays visible.
Tiny pockets and tonal shifts are part of the pour, not defects to disguise.
Return to the studio
Ekte · Norwegian for genuine
Made fromweatherand wonder.
Meet Julie Nixon, the artist and restless maker behind a one-woman workshop on the edge of the Pacific.
Victoria, BC
48.4284° N
One-woman studio
Her story
01
Hello, friend
I followed every thread until they met at one worktable.
Ekte is where Julie’s many creative lives finally became one: writer, editor, photographer, collector of colour, and lifelong maker of things by hand.
She grew up in British Columbia’s Fraser Valley and came to Vancouver Island in 1993 to study English and professional writing at the University of Victoria. A photography diploma followed later, alongside years spent writing, editing books and magazines, and photographing people.
The job titles changed. The impulse did not. Julie kept returning to material, light and the pleasure of making something tangible. Ekte became the place where all of those instincts could live together without asking any one of them to be smaller.
02 · The point of view
Genuine.
Not polished into sameness. Not hurried past the marks that tell you how it was made.
Colour keeps moving.
Botanical dyes soften, deepen and change with the life lived around them.
Time makes the line.
Every sashiko stitch holds a small decision, repeated until it becomes a field.
Wonder stays useful.
Pattern and colour bring a little lift to the ordinary objects of a day.
03
The first studio
Nature offers the best brief.
Ocean weather. Forest geometry. Lichen, stone, tide lines and the impossible green of new leaves.
Julie looks to the coast and forests around Victoria for shape, texture and colour. Scandinavian design supplies the discipline: functional, minimal and direct. Her own hand brings the warmth, pattern and small, cheerful disruptions that keep restraint from becoming sterile.
Useful enough for every day. Alive enough to keep.
04 · A winding line
No straight path.
Nothing wasted.
Each chapter left a tool on the table: language, framing, patience, observation. Ekte uses all of them.
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Fraser Valley
A childhood of making
Drawing, rearranging, collecting and learning to notice the quiet design already present in the natural world.
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1993 · Victoria
Words become a craft
English and professional writing at the University of Victoria make editing, rhythm and story part of the practice.
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Later · Western Academy
Light becomes material
Professional photography turns close observation into a daily discipline and teaches objects how to hold a frame.
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Now · Ekte
All the threads meet
Writing, image-making and a love of honest material settle into one independent studio with room to keep experimenting.
From Julie’s table to your home
Made slowly.
Meant to stay.
New work arrives in small batches. If you have an object, colour or custom piece in mind, Julie would love to hear the thought behind it.