JUL Designs

Laura Bellows -- Designer & Owner of JUL

I was trained as an anthropologist at the University of Virginia. I earned my PhD in cultural anthropology in 2003 based on two years of field research in Bali, Indonesia. Click here to see a website aimed at a lay audience for which I provided images and text aimed at making Balinese cultural life more accessible. This website was part of an exhibition of Balinese paintings and sculpture that I conceptualized and curated with Emeritus Professor Clark Cunningham at the Spurlock Museum during a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

My research-adventure in Bali allowed me to develop relationships with the people and the culture that were essential for my founding of JUL in 2007 and which remain so to the present day.  My son Julian, who has accompanied me on nearly all of my overseas travels (starting at age one and a half!) and counts Bali as his second home, first designed for JUL when he was still in middle school.  Now 21 and attending art school, his contribution to new design-development has proved critical, especially on our most recent product development trip back to Bali