Julie Fisher McCarter
We are so pleased to feature the works of Julie McCarter. Julie is a visual artist based in coastal Maine. Her work is deeply inspired by nature and the mystical worlds within it. After studying photography at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, she spent over a decade working as a photojournalist before turning her focus to her own creative practice. In addition to her art, Julie is a psychotherapist with a Master’s in Social Welfare from the University of California, Berkeley. Her background in contemplative and embodied practices profoundly informs her creative approach. She also leads workshops that weave together artistic expression, contemplation, and the evolving art of being human.
There’s a Thread You Follow
This series of images emerged during a transformative threshold in the artist’s life, created in the tender months just before her mother passed away. It was a time suspended between presence and loss, when the ordinary details of daily life felt charged with quiet significance. During this period, she began photographing family objects her mother would eventually leave behind simple, familiar items that carried the imprint of touch, habit, and shared history.
She brought these objects into nature, placing them among trees, stones, water, and sky. Removed from their domestic context, they began to shift in meaning. What once functioned as utilitarian forms transformed into vessels of memory and reflection. Within the natural world, they softened and opened, becoming visual meditations on love, consciousness, and the invisible bonds that connect us. Nature held them without sentimentality, absorbing their stories into a wider field of being.
Through this process, Julie witnessed how grief and beauty can coexist. The objects were no longer merely remnants of a life; they became imprints of relationship—evidence of a thread that continues beyond physical presence. Each photograph carries a felt sense of that thread: something steady and enduring, grounded in the wisdom of nature and untouched by the constraints of time and space.
The title of the series is inspired by the first line of William Stafford’s poem The Way It Is: “There’s a thread you follow.” In this body of work, that thread is both intimate and universal—a quiet force that guides us through love and loss, rooting us in connection even as forms change. The series stands as a meditation on continuity and the enduring fabric of relationship.
Steven Duede, Visual Artist, Aspect Principle
I photographed family objects that my mom ultimately left behind, bringing them into nature and witnessing them transform from ordinary forms to new visual imprints
There's a Thread You Follow
This series of images emerged during a transformative period in my life, just before my mother passed away.
I photographed family objects that my mom ultimately left behind, bringing them into nature and witnessing them transform from ordinary forms to new visual imprints of understanding about love, consciousness and connection.
Each image in this series holds a felt-sense of the thread we follow; grounded in the wisdom of nature and absent of time and space. The title of this series is inspired by the first line of William Stafford's poem, The Way it Is.
-Julie Fisher McCarter
Julie Fisher McCarter
Julie Fisher Mccarter
Julie Fischer McCarter is a visual artist whose work is greatly informed by nature and they mystical world found within it. She studied photography at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco and worked for over 10 years as a photojournalist and photographer before shifting her attention to her own body of work.
Julie is also a psychotherapist with a Master's in Social Welfare from University of California at Berkeley. Her experience with contemplative and emobodied practices are often at the center of her apporach to creative work.
Julie greatly enjoys leading workshops that blend themes of creative expression, contremplative practice and the art of being a human being at this time in the world.
Visit: Julie