LocalJune 24, 2024

Artist of the Day: Julie Roland

Local Stories

Today’s Artist of the Day features an interview with Julie Roland. Please find our conversation below.

Thanks for joining us and we’re so excited to have our readers learn more about you and your creative works. Kick things off for us, what should they know?
I’m an active duty Lieutenant and helicopter pilot in the Navy and a full-time law student. That’s already a unique combo, but this interview is about neither of those things.

I’m here to talk about my creative projects! To start, there’s Just Tryna Make Friends (JTMF), a backyard variety arts show featuring local artists for local audiences that I started back in 2019 with my friend and comedienne extraordinaire Emilia Barrosse. Now, along with my co-producer Neil, I produce the show, book acts, make artwork for promotional materials, and frequently host, sprinkling magic tricks throughout most of the shows and sometimes even singing, playing guitar, or trying my hand at any other art form. In addition to JTMF, I also have a one-woman show called Just an Idea. I say “one-woman show” as a bit of a joke because I am accompanied by one-man: Stu Shames, my pianist (he’s incredible), and the show is super interactive and invites a lot of audience participation too. So it is really not a one-woman show, but I am admittedly the sole actor. Both of these shows are free and open to the public.

Today, JTMF is a 501c3 nonprofit with the mission of promoting the arts and building community. Every show has magic, music, and comedy, but we like to say “and everything else.” We have featured hundreds of local artists from puppeteers, jugglers, poets, storytellers, and fire sword dancers, and we have entertained thousands of San Diegans in Pacific Beach, Mission Hills, South Park, University Heights, Barrio Logan, and more. As a testament to our supportive community, we have been voted a finalist in San Diego Reader Magazine’s Best Neighborhood Event in 2021, 2022, and 2023, alongside events like La Mesa Oktoberfest and Adams Avenue Street Fair. Though the biggest goal of JTMF is for people to–obviously–make friends, I also want to encourage others to share their art even if they’ve never performed before. You don’t have to be perfect; there’s a friendly audience that will embrace you anyway.

In Just an Idea, I tell the audience that it is Day One in the “Writer’s Room,” and our goal is to write the next Tony award-winning musical. I asked them for a handful of suggestions to get us started. What kinds of characters do we want to see? Where does our show take place? What time period? Then, I try to bring it to life, brainstorming the story and performing it on the spot. It’s pretty cool that even without any script, costume or set design, cast, or rehearsals, we can feel like we brought a musical to life, or at least a show that evokes a similar feeling to seeing something on Broadway.

Frankly, so many of us have dreams and ideas that we’d love to see in action, but very few truly materialize. At a Just an Idea show, it is just an idea, but it is our collective idea. Everyone can contribute, so the audience gets to be part of the entire show–if they want to see something on stage, then they just have to shout it out, and I’ll incorporate it. From their seats, they get to be writers and directors. The show is really all about collaboration and imagination. In its own way, it fits the mission of JTMF too: promoting imagination promotes the arts, collaboration is community building.

There are a lot of ways to serve a community, but I think public art projects are a slam dunk. Art has unlimited potential to benefit the community. It can help boost the economy, create a sense of belonging and identity, stimulate thinking, spark innovation, combat social anxiety and isolation, and increase civic engagement. Plus, it can be beautiful, healing, and fun. Unfortunately, art often has a significant price tag associated. As a result, there are so many hardworking people out there who don’t get to just enjoy art because even a $5 ticket can be prohibitive. That’s why the shows I put on are always free and open to the public.

I do understand these creative side hobbies may seem unique for a Naval Officer / law student, but everything I spend time doing is part of the same mission: I want to make myself useful by doing the most good.

Who (or what) has your work been inspired by? Do you hope your work inspires others? If so, what message do you want them to be inspired by?
Dolly Parton says, “Find out who you are and do it on purpose.” I don’t know where I’m headed, but I want to, as earnestly as possible, throw spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks (now I’m laughing at the image of someone very earnestly throwing spaghetti at a wall).

Wherever I end up, I’ll always give my mom credit for helping me get there. She showed me the value of art, community, and civic engagement. She also taught me to follow my nose and believe in myself as long as I stayed oriented towards helping others, especially those with the least privilege. I remember we used to talk a lot about the 60s, where a message of nonviolence was more powerful because it not only came from people like Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy, but also from artists like Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, and Bob Dylan. I’m definitely inspired by that moment in history, where leaders in different spheres of culture came together to leverage their respective influence to fight for civil rights. It takes a coalition like that to be successful; a movement of justice and peace must be intersectional.

In my fantasies, JTMF is a little slice of Woodstock / Summer of Love. It’s art, but it’s about much more than art. I want JTMF to encourage people to open themselves up, be vulnerable, share their art, and bring the spirit of friendship into all they do. It’s about community and community building. It’s about bringing people together. Congregating the demos. It’s empowering and uplifting. At least, I hope it inspires people in this way.

It may be fair to say that no matter what I’m working on, I’m trying to harness people’s power. I think I heard Pharrell say once that everyone has “talent, beauty, and potential.” I really feel that way and hope that I can inspire people to believe that and act on it, to direct it towards a higher purpose. If we all brought that attitude to the table, then we could definitely change the world for the better. We could fight against climate change and for social justice. We could set off a youth movement, a cultural revolution, a Constitutional Convention. I think we’re overdue.