Julia D’Amario became intrigued by printmaking as a child while watching her grandfather work on his etching press. She studied the art at Smith College and apprenticed in galleries in Massachusetts and New York. In the early 1990s, when working at Pace Editions in New York, she met Aldo Crommelynck, a legendary printmaker who worked with artists such as Picasso and Matisse. Crommelynck became her mentor and teacher. After his death in 2008, he gifted D’Amario with a set of handmade printmaking tools.
D’Amario moved to the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology in 1997, where she became the master printer in the Jordan Schnitzer Printmaking Residency Program. There, she continues to instruct amateur printmakers in the craft over intensive two week long residencies, during which they create their own copperplate etchings.
