Bio:
A native of California, Jill has a background in music, painting, sculpture, and photography. In her early years she played, wrote and sang music with bands in the 60's, and became staff photographer for the International Monterey Pop Festival, distinguishing herself as a fine photographer. Although she had been painting during these years, she expanded her visual arts study at UCLA taking Metal Sculpture with early environmental artist Lloyd Hamrol. She continued to study painting on scholarship at The Art Student's League in New York with Frank Mason, a master of classical painting, and with renowned painter David Laffel at his studio in Manhattan. She then moved to Italy and became immersed in Italian culture while living in Florence for many years. She showed her work extensively in galleries across Europe.
Jill started working on portrait commissions on her return to Los Angeles in the late 70's. She moved to the bay area and studied Chinese medicine and philosophy for several years, both of which have influenced her work. She continued painting during the early 80's while living in Mexico. On her return to the bay area, she began working extensively with paper pulp that evolved into her cast paper work during the 90's. She broadened her use of materials to include clay for sculpting and cement as a medium for casting, and this period of working with 3 dimensional forms evolved into her sculptures of today.
Most recently, due to the heavy weight of casting cement sculptures, Jill has been exploring a new material called Metal clay. This is a fine metal powder combined with an organic binder, and when adding water it becomes malleable and can be sculpted, textured, pushed into a press mold or draped. In it’s dry or leather hard form, it can be sanded, filed, carved, and assembled with other pieces. In this way Jill’s jewelry has become an extension of her concrete sculptures but can be done in a small space and is very light weight. Her inspiration comes from the sacredness of nature, and archetypal Feminine energy and wisdom. Her work has been shown in art galleries and gift stores throughout the US and is in numerous private collections. She continues to work with jewelry and painting at her studio in Penngrove, CA.
