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Portraits made from lifeSEE MORE IMAGES IN ALBUMS
ON WEBSHOTS.COM
Jill's Albums
Click above to download screensavers of Jill's art work, order photos, mugs, mousepads and other objects
by Jill Baker.
Or
order portraits, paintings or drawings at reasonable prices (watercolor portraits are $40.00 for 9" X 12") directly
from the artist. Call Jill at (812) 682-4686 to discuss cost and size of art you want. Giclees also available.
/// /// BIOGRAPHY
l969 to l975: Exhibited in art fairs and institutions,
including Western Kentucky University and Purdue University, and is in many private collections. Painted only extant portrait
of Thomas Merton.
1975 Lived in Florence, Italy where she painted local landscapes, attended the Academia di Belle
Arti and exhibited at the Incontro di Stranieri in the Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, Italy.
1975 - 1978 Illustrated
9 books with drawings and prints. Began to exhibit in New York City, with shows at Goethe House and Ward-Nasse Gallery. Also
in one-person and group shows in galleries In Louisville and Florida.
l977 Lived in Seoul, Korea under the auspices
of the U.S.I.S., held workshops in Fine Arts and exhibited at the U. S. Embassy in Seoul paintings of travels through Korea,
Bangkok, Kyoto, Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
Jill discusses one of her assemblages entitled "Earthquake Detector" with Dennis
Altman during one of the exhibitions of her work.
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Column
by Roger McBain in Evansville Courier-Press /// /// /// /// /// /// /// /// /// ///BIO -- Continued
l978 - l996 Lived in Greenwich Village in Manhattan, and in SoHo loft. Attended and graduated Pratt
Institute with M.F.A. degree. Represented by galleries in New York, Louisville and Houston and exhibited internationally.
Moved to Los Angeles loft, worked as visual artist. Taught Art at Pierce College, Woodland Hills, CA.
1996 Moved
to Nashville, Tennessee. Helped create murals in downtown Gallatin. Paints portraits and web design. Worked for Vanderbilt
as a web designer. Also taught art privately and at The Art Institute of Nashville, Nossi College of Art and at University
of Phoenix. January of 2007 Moved
to New Harmony, Indiana, where she has a home studio/gallery.
Jill currently is exhibiting in Evansville and in
New Harmony, Indiana, as well as in Nashville, TN. She is a professor at University of Southern Indiana.
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BLOG
6/292010 THE FIRST PART OF A STORY I WROTE ON THIS DATE:
A DAY WITHOUT SUNSHINE IS NIGHT I am a reporter, a now-single
woman who had been married in the suburbs, raised a boy-child to be a teen-ager and sent him off to his father. I now have
a job with the Evening Star, a large newspaper in the biggest city in the state. My assignment was to go
up into the mountains and get to know a hillbilly family, to write an in-depth, tear-jerker story about the hardships these
people endure daily. It would be a feature story, an exposé of how our state has allowed these poor people to live
here forever, ignored and unassisted. My editor shook my hand as I took off that day, saying “be sure to come back.
You know how those people are – they would some of them just as soon shoot you as look at you.” And he laughed.
I laughed too, but not quite as mirthfully. I still had the idea that it was an adventure, but had never considered the fact
that it might be dangerous. I traveled for two days up into the mountains, getting off the main road, following
the gravel, then the dirt roads for two more days into the hills and hollers of those beautiful mountains. I was scaling the
uppermost heights and plumbing the deepest gorges in search of these elusive people. At one point I noticed I needed gas,
but there were no gas stations at any of the crossroads. Finally my car, almost out of gas, was speeding along a mountain
top gravel road and went off the very edge of the one lane, shoulderless road. Thinking fast, I pulled the right wheel back
on, but as a result, the left tire went off the other side. I corrected it again and found myself flying off the side of the
mountain, headlong into space. That was the last thing I remembered. When I awoke, I was hanging head down, my body suspended
by my seatbelts, and I was sore all over. My car had turned upside down at the bottom of a deep holler. When I looked around
I could see lots of people standing around the car, talking to each other. I didn’t know it then, but they were a family;
two families, really, the Greens and the Mawleys. They were all standing around the car wondering if I was alive and wondering
if I had any money with me. They had heard my car coming along the ridge, they told me later, and suddenly heard the cracking
of the trees, then silence. They came running to see who had crashed. When I opened my eyes and looked around, they saw I
was alive and pulled me out. I had a concussion, but I did not realize this, nor did they. I had no memory of who I was at the time,
and was acting like a zombie. I allowed them to walk me through the woods, up the hill and along the ridge road to their trailer
home, where I recuperated. After living with them for a couple of months, I had become one of the many members of the family;
there seemed to be someone of every age living in the house. It was really amazing that the interior of the trailer was so
small, yet there was room for everyone to sleep. During the day the women cooked and then went outside, and the men and boys
and little children disappeared outside all the time, unless they were eating in the kitchen. Even though
I am in my late 30s I considered myself pretty nice looking, and I must have some sex appeal because the men of the family,
as well as the women, were coming by my bed and talking with me until I was able to get up. Then, when I saw myself in the
one broken mirror in one of the two bathrooms, with my hair uncombed and no make-up, I realized I was not good looking. I
was a mess. (To be continued. . .)
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7/4/2010
My artwork encompasses the mediums of drawing, collage, watercolor, oil, photography, and computer graphics. ///
All of it is
representational and tends to be impressionistic or surreal. ///
My collage-and-oil paintings demonstrate
detail, perspective and proportion. Even though the work appears to be representational, it is surreal with emphasis on the
fact that it is how you see the world that determines your place in the world. ///
Perspective
is everything. You may think you see a cottage by a pond, but if you look in the lower right-hand corner at the bridge and
walkway, you see it is a large fortress with a Sphinx on top, and you suddenly realize how small you are. ///
My M.F.A. from Pratt was in Painting, and though I utilize a variety of techniques, most categories fall under that
category. I use photography not only as a medium, but as one of my tools, like paint, to create a complex image. ///
I studied
under the famous collagist, Karl Zerbe in Florida, and, with his encouragement, developed my own style of collage, utilizing
photography, oils and mixed media to create a whole image that approaches the style of Bosch. Some
of my work is structural and made from found materials. It is an outgrowth of my love affair with collage. ///
Structural
works consist of boxes and assemblages. It is my purpose to show everyone the incredible depth and power
of surrealism, using humor and irony, encompassing the poignant and complex design of the world that I see, as well as how
I see it, through my art.
I
also paint realistic portraits and landscapes, using forms of the colored shapes, planes, angles and complex lines which make
up the real world we live in and creating a new reality, more pure and beautiful.
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