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JUL Original Designs are created in two ways. Some are worked through in an experimental way by playing with different kinds of wax, or manipulating silver to create interesting textures, shapes, and images that can be hand cast in precious or non-precious metals in the US. Often in these richly textured designs we strive to create objects that have the quality of unearthed artifacts, old things recovered from an archeological dig
In other JUL designs we seek to achieve a high level of rich elegance. These pieces go through an exacting process of refinement until the location of every motif, and measurement, is specified down to the fraction of a millimeter. These designs are then realized by hand directly in material—wax, wood, precious and non-precious metal, semi-precious stones, leather, and resin—by skilled craftspeople in Bali.
Laura Bellows was trained as an anthropologist at the University of Virginia, earning her PhD in cultural anthropology in 2003 based on two years of field research in Bali, Indonesia. It is this intimate adventure in Bali that allowed her to develop the relationships with the people and the Laura Bellows culture that have led to her founding of JUL. Laura conceptualized and curated with Emeritus Professor Clark Cunningham at the Spurlock Museum during a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Agus Astradhi was trained at the Arts University in Bali as a painter and designer. Upon graduation he created jewelry designs for the world famous Balinese jewelry company Suarti. He worked as a free-lance jewelry designer and graphic artist, Agus Astradhi, before joining JUL in 2007.
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We work directly with clothing and bag designers to develop integral bag jewelry and accessory designs in unconventional materials. Many JUL metal designs are created by Laura Bellows in wax, cast by hand in silver, and later reproduced in US casting studios in non-precious metals.
Other designs are generated in conjunction with Balinese co-designer Agus Astradhi and made by hand in Bali. For some items, prototypes are created by hand in Bali and produced in the US.
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