Photograph by Thomas Molash
Julia Carusillo is a Denver-based graduate of the Savannah College of Art and Design, having earned her MFA in Production Design in 2013, after graduating with her BFA in Art Direction from Pratt Institute in 2011. Julia is an artist, set designer and art instructor, working in a wide range of media from gouache painting to Sketchup, Adobe Creative Suite, resin, embroidery, and more. She has worked in film, theme park, theatre, TV, event and exhibition design. Since 2024, Julia has been teaching Miniatures classes to a variety of ages and adores helping students realize their big and tiny potential.
\Julia has been interviewed for and featured in pieces for various publications about two Instagram accounts she created and runs in her spare time, including interviews with Arch Digest and Nylon for her Polly Pocket collection, which has over 20k followers and can be found at @polly_pick_pocket. Julia’s other popular account, with 26k followers, is @realhousewivessmoking, a critical analysis of reality tv behavior, about which she wrote a piece for Gawker and was interviewed on the podcast “So Good It’s Bad with Ryan Bailey”. She previously singlehandedly ran and designed Salad Days Pins, a line of history and culture-themed enamel pins, which were sold across Chicago and online.
Julia’s gouache and watercolor illustrations have been featured in Der Spiegel, Vice, Vice again, and once more in Vice. She has also painted and designed more than ten album covers and designed identities for various businesses and artists. Julia loves history, painting, refurbishing her dollhouse, Weimaraners, thrifting and falling into Wikipedia holes.