Jools Annie (Julia Hutt) is a self-taught multi-disciplinary artist residing in Kjipuktuk, Nova Scotia. Inspired by her own experience with pregnancy, birthing and baby-raising, Jools works with both traditional and digital illustration to create anecdotal scenes that portray snapshots of early parenthood. Common themes in her work include lactation, body positivity, and birthing people’s mental and physical changes. This work aims to challenge the capitalist devaluation of child rearing work and traditionally gendered work, such as housework and feeding kids.

 

Jools does commissioned portrait work for new parents and families. Some of her recent collaborations include educational graphics for Nova Scotia Public Interest Research Group(NSPIRG), and portraits for artist Elise Peterson’s podcast Talk Cool Moms based in Los Angeles, CA. Jools also regularly collaborates with her partner Lance Sampson (Aquakultre), working on video art direction, production, and set design, as well as album artwork.

 

In 2019, she was the artist in residence for Wellness Within’s conference Confronting the Carceral State: Autonomy, Community, and Liberation. Since then, she has produced work with Wellness Within and Martha Paynter to raise  awareness about reproductive justice in the Canadian prison system. Their most recent collaboration is a book titled Abortion to Abolition, for which she produced 24 illustrations. 

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In 2022, Jools received the Media Art Scholarship at Centre for Art Tapes (in Kjipuktuk). During this program, she created an animated piece titled Today, Any Day, that offers a glimpse into the repetitive and mundane tasks of early motherhood. 

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Photo: Jazz Codrington, @graphosjazz