eilisain: Jillian Moore demo at the ECU Making Marks Symposium

Monday, January 21, 2013

Jillian Moore demo at the ECU Making Marks Symposium

I'm going to kick off my blogging of the ECU Metals Symposium: Making Marks with a bang of color and dive right into the best part or shall I say one of my favorite demos of the weekend, was Jillian Moore's demonstration of how she makes her awesome freaky sea creature (in my opinion) jewelry!

Before I delve into Jillian's demonstration, I'll start off by saying that she is one of the most approachable, open, patient and self-effacing artist I've met. When you attend conferences and symposiums like SNAG or Yuma, it can be intimidating and scary to talk to your artist crushes, but Jillian is authentic and very true to herself and I really enjoyed that about her.

Okay, so here goes...she makes her sculptural jewelry out of foam and then coats it in several layers of resin! And she paints along the way. there are certain brands and specific types of materials she uses but that is not for me to reveal.

Like many other jewelers and metalsmiths fresh out of schooling and training, Jillian didn't have all the resources and tools she had in school which led her to be very inventive in how she started making her creatures. With lots of experimenting and trial and error she landed on her current pieces and method of constructing them. Something else that I found refreshing about Jillian was how open she was about her process; it can be very difficult in our industry to share knowledge because it is often abused. But in the end I think if you are confident in yourself and those that support your work; the public will see and know which is authentic and which isn't.