Karen Czuleger

Karen Czuleger's Painted Sea Star Studio creates art inspired by nature for eco-conscious individuals who seek beauty in all things. A local Santa Barbara artist, Karen founded Painted Sea Star Studio in November 2011. Her training includes double bachelor degrees in biology and environmental studies—as well as a graduate certificate in scientific illustration—from UC Santa Cruz. She is also a 2011 graduate of WEV's Self-Employment Training (SET) course. Karen paints on location along the majestic Central coast and the Channel Islands. Her astute attention to detail as an illustrator, combined with her playful brushstrokes, are what makes each landscape so special. Karen's studio consists of a large backpack filled with all the supplies needed to paint in the field. The freedom to go where inspiration takes her is the essence of what makes Karen enjoy every minute of the artistic experience.

Karen is available for freelance illustration work and can be contacted via email at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it Click here to visit her Facebook business page 'Painted Sea Star Studio,' and click here to visit her her blog 'Impressesion of an Illustrator.' Plus stay tuned for the debut of www.paintedseastar.com in early 2012!

Lili Rahmati

Displayed in WEV's Ventura Office

Since mid-2007 Lili Rahmati has found her creative home in the form of fine art black & white photography and darkroom printing. Lili’s experience has taught her that a black & white photograph is rarely a composition of only black and white; rather it contains seemingly endless tonalities of gray-scale in between the two extremes. Lili can apply this same description to herself as she is a mixture of cultures and sensibilities; the confluence of which has resulted in the individual who she has become. Having been born in Iran and raised in Europe and the United States, she is a reconciliation of two extremes, much like the black and white images that she likes to shoot and print.

A world traveler since childhood, Lili loves to embark upon new global adventures every chance she gets. Traveling with only her film, her film camera and her imagination, Lili enjoys exploring new lands, cultures and languages; expressing her vision of the world through her black and white fine art film photographs. Upon returning from her travels, she breathes life into the images she’s captured on her film negatives by printing each one by hand in the traditional chemical darkroom. From start to finish, the entire creation is completely unique as no two darkroom images are ever exactly the same. It is this personal connection to her work that she enjoys sharing with others, whether they are observers or collectors. Having participated in several Los Angeles area group-shows, Lili’s work hangs in private collections throughout Europe, North America and South America. She continues to take custom orders for her work through her website.

When she’s not traveling the world or spending time in the darkroom, Lili’s full-time focus is on her core business, Empowered Bookkeeping LLC, a firm based in Westlake Village, which she founded in 2009 based on her strong desire to help individual women and women entrepreneurs gain empowerment through mastery of their finances. Given the common focus on the advancement of women, it made perfect sense for Lili and Empowered Bookkeeping to join WEV (since 2010) to support the efforts of such an amazing organization.

View Lili's photographs!