Shrewd young art vendor draws on ‘poppa’ for artistic inspiration

Many good artists over the years began their journey with art at a very young age.

Iconic painter Salvador Dali’s earliest paintings were completed between the ages of six and 10 on the back of blank postcards.

A wee Pablo Picasso would occasionally be called upon to add the finishing touches to his father’s paintings.

Here in Barrie, young Julianna Ingram, who is a Grade 4 student at Steele Street Public School, has begun a journey of her own.

Where that journey takes her is impossible to predict, but she’s not thinking about any of that, nor should she.

What is her own reason for creating art?

“Because it makes me happy,” the nine-year-old tells BarrieToday. “It kinda just calms me down.”

Lately, she has taken to offering her drawings for sale, as an artist is wont to do.

Ingram has created her own pop-up art stand outside her home, much in the same way a lemonade vendor would.

She has been selling her whimsical pieces for 10 cents each, and has sold nearly 25 works of art to passersby in her general neighbourhood, sometimes at the corner of Hickling Trail and McCuaig Court in the city’s northeast end.

And a smart salesperson she definitely is, as she also gives away free candy with every purchase as incentive to buy her artwork.

What does she plan to do with the earnings?

“I bought some toys,” she answers, and also noted she would like to buy some new art supplies such as new crayons and markers.

Smart thinking.

Ingram says her favourite subjects to draw are unicorns, “because they’re cute”, along with trees.

“I’d like to try and draw a flamingo,” when asked about what she wants to try next.

She recently wanted to start painting, to expand her horizons, so she painted glass jars and sold a few of those as well.

Ingram is a self-taught artist, for the most part, but “I work with my poppa because he is an artist,” she says. “He paints on canvases. He draws outside places, cars, and people.”

Her grandfather, or poppa, as he goes by, is Mike Kilburn, a landscape painter living in Thornbury. He previously lived in Barrie for 25 years.

Kilburn agrees with his granddaughter when it comes to why she creates art, and the calmness that it brings her.

“You’re thinking about yourself, and thinking about your families,” he says.

“It’s just a nice quiet time. When I’m out painting for four hours, the only one talking to me is me.”

Kilburn remembers well when the art bug bit young Julianna.

“We would have them up for the weekend at our house and I would say, ‘do you want to paint with poppa?’ And she would say, ‘yeah, I want to paint with poppa,’” he says.

“She just enjoyed it,” Kilburn adds. “And at that point I was certainly not saying, ‘hey, you should try that,’ (it was) just working with her and letting her have fun, which she did.”

When he heard about her pop-up sales idea, with the proceeds going back into art supplies, he thought ‘that was great.”

“It can get expensive, but poppa looks after her as well,” he says.

And his thoughts about this BarrieToday story about her?

“She’ll be so proud and so happy, you won’t be able to get the smile off her face.”

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