Julia Colicchio's paintings will be displayed in 1,100 Michaels stores
When Julia Colicchio landed an internship with a prominent art supply company, she was thrilled to work alongside professional artists and explore new approaches to painting.
But she never dreamed that her own paintings she developed during the internship last semester would be viewed by potentially thousands of people across the nation.
Colicchio, a visual arts student at the Mason Gross School of the Arts, designed and hand-painted a series of watercolor designs that will be displayed in 1,100 Michaels stores, the largest arts and crafts specialty retailer in North America.
The evocative paintings, which use magenta and blue watercolors; swirling geometric shapes and symbols; and a mix of medium effects will appear on a “Paint Your Passion” display in Michaels aimed at inspiring customers to check out different paints and painting supplies.
Colicchio, a junior who is spending the spring semester studying in Italy, said the project developed from what she thought was a routine assignment during her internship with ColArt, a leading supplier of artists’ materials, based in Piscataway. Even as she worked on the paintings, she had no idea they would be showcased and displayed to the public.
“At first, I didn’t even know what I was working on,” she said during an interview from Florence. “The people I worked with at ColArt are very professional, but they’re artists, and they’re very laid back and nonchalant about things. They just said: ‘Use these colors, use these mediums, and make up any design you want.’
“And then they said: ‘Hey, I really like what you did, now go make 1,100 of them.”
Jimmy Leslie, the resident artist at ColArt, said Colicchio’s work conveys a powerful message of the possibilities of painting that will catch the eyes – and minds – of customers roaming the aisles of Michaels.
“Michaels is a lot different than a specialty art store – they have all kinds of stuff,” Leslie said. “What Julia
The display is expected to go up in stores this spring.
For Colicchio, the paintings represent not only an artistic accomplishment, but also a feat of endurance. All told, she hand-painted 4,400 signs – 1,100 of each of her four designs – between October and early January.
“Making these signs on top of school work was such a huge workload,” she said. “I had to sacrifice a lot during the semester. I went home every weekend to work on the signs. It was a lot of time management.”
Working off a suggested color scheme and medium, she began painting on big pads of watercolor paper and then cut them down to small squares. She used a range of mediums – like gum arabic to create a shiny effect, or granulation for a faded, washed-out look, and ceramic stucco to fashion textured ridges.
Christina Yoder, a 2010 graduate of Mason Gross who works at ColArt, said Colicchio’s talent is matched by her work ethic. “In the beginning, it was very overwhelming because of the sheer numbers of paintings,” Yoder said. “Julia was completely engaged, met all the deadlines, and did a fantastic job.”
Coliccio was paid for her work for Michaels and also received painting supplies.
Growing up in Millburn, Colicchio said she wasn’t aware she had artistic talent until she reached high school.
“My family isn’t really artistic at all,” she said. “My teachers in middle school would tell me I had great potential, and I never really believed it.”
But in high school, encouraged by a teacher, she began taking advanced art classes and exploring different mediums. When she came to Rutgers, she started off as a political science major before switching to the BFA program in the visual arts department of Mason Gross, where she has a concentration in painting.
Colicchio said the program has transformed her as an artist.
“Their visual arts program has a strong basis in abstraction, and I came to college thinking that was not anything I really liked or could ever do,” she said. “But Mason Gross actually helped me broaden my horizons in terms of what I paint, what I draw, color, and my sense of composition.”
And that growth, she said, is apparent in her work for Michaels.
“These are designs I made up from my head,” she said. “Thinking about the geometric shapes I was creating with each line and how it had a relationship with the ones surrounding it helped me to consider each individual composition."
After taking in a recent art fair in Bologna, she realized she had come full circle.
“Before I came to Mason Gross, I probably would have went to this place and not liked half of it,” she said. “Now after being introduced to so many different ways of painting, I really appreciate what I saw.”