Meet Julian Billotte
World Renowned Gilder & Restorer of Antique Frames

The Mendocino Art Association (MCAA) presents another opportunity for the community at large to engage with a world recognized artist, Julian Billotte has achieved that recognition for his talent in restoring and recreating lost pieces of badly damaged antique frames in addition to his ability to scale tall buildings to apply gold leaf surfaces.

This is a part of the “Meet the Artist” series, presentations open to the public free of charge. MCAA hopes to reach artists and art lovers with interesting stories of Artists and their life and times and to be an inspiration for their work.  Julian will be at the Ukiah Garden Club on February 18, from 10am to 12pm.

Julian has practiced his art of gilding in the most adventurous, interesting and historic places from altars in Greece to the heights of an onion dome in the Bay Area He will demonstrate his gilding technique and explain the process of restoring antique frames. There will be frames displayed to ogle the mind. As well as a slide show of examples of the places he has been and the objects he has revived.

“ I recently attended a gallery show of the gigantic frames he has restored in cases where only one corner was left on a hugely ornate frame, Julian had recreated that corner for the three missing with such exactness that you would not know which was the original”, Kathleen Gordon-Burke.

Julian Billotte, a gilder and conservator of gilded objects since 1994, He trained with Joel Hoyer at the Louvre Frame Shop in San Francisco and studied wood carving with Agrell and Thorpe in Sausalito.
Julian traveled to Mt Athos in Greece to study Icon Restoration with Fr. Paul Politis at the Skiti of Saint Andreas. He was invited back to gild an altarpiece for the monastery Dionysou in 2000. Mr. Billotte is the owner of Capricho Studio and has completed many large jobs, including gilding the dome of the Church of All Russian Saints in Burlingame, the Governors’ Ballroom at the Academy Award Complex in Hollywood, the restoration of 40,000 sq. ft. of the ceiling at the historic Anza Branch of the San Francisco Public Library. Since 2014, Julian has maintained the frames for the Keith Collection at Saint Mary’s College and, in 2006, he was guest curator for an exhibit highlighting the frames and frame conservation of the Collection. The Keith Collection was exhibited in the Grace Hudson Museum a few years ago.

The Mendocino County Art Association is the oldest art organization in the County, established in 1954, its objective is to offer lectures, workshops, classes and art exhibits for the benefit of its members and the public at large. Members receive first option to attend workshops at a reduced rate and opportunities to show their art in banks and galleries.  Membership in the association is $35 a year, text 707 391-8469 to join or receive more information on the benefits of membership.