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Lead visual designer for American Girl decorates window at local art gallery

During the day, Whiting’s Jules Kulchar-Naus has a job many young girls and female tweens would envy.
For the last five years, Kulchar-Naus has served as the lead visual designer at American Girl Place on Chicago’s Gold Coast. There, she is responsible for creating what shoppers and passersby will see in the windows of the beloved children’s doll and doll accessories store.

“They love it when they find out what I do,” she said. “They’re like ‘Oh my god. I’m so jealous.’ I love working with the dolls. It’s cool because how many people get to do that? We only have three main stores that have windows, so I feel lucky to be able to do that.”

After hours, the designer and artist uses those talents and skills on the windows of Whiting’s Studio 659. Kulchar-Naus’ latest monthly creation for the gallery coincides with their exhibit “Vixens: Pin-Up Girl Art,” slated to open Feb. 3.

Reared in Hammond, a graduate of George Rogers Clark High School, Kulchar-Naus cited painting as her first artistic passion. To find work that would allow her to apply her artistic leanings, she majored in interior design; in 2006, Kulchar-Naus received a bachelor’s degree in fine arts at the International Academy of Design and Technology in Chicago.

Kulchar-Naus saw opportunity for her artistic flair to be utilized at Studio 659.

“They have this awesome window space that they weren’t using,” she said, “so every time I walked by, I’d think ‘Oh my god. They’re not using this space,’ and it would drive me crazy.”

Last year, she met Dawn Diamantopoulos, an abstract painter and Studio 659 board member. They were connected via Facebook by mutual friend Dave Mueller, at Hammond’s Paul Henry’s Art Gallery, who displays her paintings in an ongoing group show.

“I would describe (Kulchar-Naus) as an artist who is very clear with the definition of her work,” said Mueller. “The execution is superior. The attraction to many people is her use of color, which is dramatic. It’s almost painting in motion.”

After a handful of communications, Kulchar-Naus was given the green light by Studio 659 to work her magic in their windows. There was, however, an immediate obstacle.

“There wasn’t a budget,” she said. “I knew that would be the case, and luckily I’m really good at keeping things and scavenging and borrowing and stuff like that. It makes it more challenging when I know I don’t have anything, money-wise, to work with. But it also keeps me more creative that way.”

Stylistically, Kulchar-Naus cited pop art pioneer Andy Warhol and modern art trailblazer Georgia O’ Keeffe as influences in her window design work.

“What I got from Georgia is filling a space, and it’s very organic,” she said. “And Andy had just a different view of things, more just taking chances and not caring what people think and willing to put yourself out there.”

Kulchar-Naus made her Studio 659 window debut with the gallery’s “Day of the Dead” exhibit in October and has adorned the windows with her creations ever since.

“It’s amazing,” Diamantopoulos said of Kulchar-Naus’ window art. “It’s a huge draw to the studio and to downtown Whiting as well. She’s very creative and very thorough in what she’s doing. She plans the whole idea out in her head and finds creative ways to execute what she’s doing as it ties into the show.”
Kulchar-Naus said “Every window is like an art installation for me.”

“I’m doing less painting now, because this is time consuming, but I love it and I wouldn’t be doing anything else. With my job, I have to think of the brand and what’s appropriate for girls and thing like that. And here it’s total freedom.”

Kulchar-Naus is awed by compliments she has received from the community.

“I love since I am so close, I can see people stopping by and looking at the windows. That’s something that I love, seeing people’s response to them,” she said.

“A lot of people have seen me in the studio but they don’t know what I’m doing. I think they’re just surprised at the change they’ve seen, and hopefully it’s making them come inside, because that’s the whole goal.”

For “Vixens,” which is a series of original creations of pin-up models created by area artists, Kulchar-Naus included contributions by fellow artists and community members for her design.

“I come up with a plan and know what I can do and what I can use, but most of it happens when I’m in the window and in the process of it,” she said. “People always ask if they can help me, and it’s really hard because I can’t give people a list of things to do. It just happens in the moment, which is just awesome.”

Source: http://www.nwitimes.com