Jill Allan

Artist Statement 

I come from a craft tradition of vessel making, but I am shifting to make work that starts with expression and tells a different story. Many pieces in this exhibit highlight that shift – starting with a vessel-like form, but then being altered in ways that disrupt ideas of function. The artistic tradition of working in series allows for iterations of an idea to be expressed and understood through differences in scale, form, patterns, and repetition. This adds a richness and an invitation for viewers to consider the process by seeing many variations within a theme. 

I employ my skills as a craftsperson to abstract the function of the objects I make, which may be considered a design or artistic pursuit. In truth I work as a hybrid: designer - craft maker - artist. For a long time, I struggled with the urge to do all three, thinking it would reduce clarity. Now I see the strength and quality that a multifaceted approach brings when I embrace this crossover. 

Working in the studio is the most vigorous physical and conceptual incubator; one idea leads to the next and so on. While much of my inspiration comes from drawing, ultimately, the work is about light. Through drawing, I find the forms that I want to realize three dimensionally, and with glass, I can make that form with light. Glass possesses fascinating material properties and interacts with light to reflect and refract, to focus and project, to distort, magnify and ‘minify’, or to amplify and absorb that light. My work as an artist is to use not just the glass, but also the light and the optical trickery of glass to create work that perplexes the eye, piquing the viewer’s curiosity. I like the idea that some pieces need to be handled to be understood visually and enjoy this connection between the hand and eye of the viewer, nodding to my haptic process as a maker. 

Artist Biography 

Jill Allan is an artist and educator originally from Vancouver Island. She graduated in 1999 with a BFA from ACAD, Calgary, and since that time she has built her career as an artist designing, producing, and promoting her work. In 2011 Jill travelled to Bowling Green, Ohio to pursue an MFA. During her studies in Ohio Jill focused on sculptural works, producing a suspended neon screen installation, photograms of glass objects, and pierced, threaded hollow forms in glass.

She graduated in 2013 from the Department of 3D Arts at Bowling Green State University, and accepted a one year teaching term in the Arts and Humanities Department Glass Area at Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Returning to Canada in 2014, Jill eventually settled in Calgary, AB where she accepted work as a sessional instructor at the Alberta University of the Arts (AUArts). She relocated to Edmonton, Alberta in 2020. Jill Allan’s work has been collected by the Studio at the Corning Museum of Glass in NY, ACAD in Calgary, The Making Treaty 7 Society in Calgary, The Canadian Craft Museum in Vancouver, and Kirkwood Community College in Iowa.

Jill’s studio practice is based in abstracting the craft tradition of vessel making and is influenced by Scandinavian design. Her work is quiet, clean, and modern, making the most of the material characteristics of glass. Jill explores themes of colour, pattern, and the interplay of light with the materials she uses. In addition to making blown glass objects, Jill is interested in neon, installation, public art projects, and designing with light. Most recently, Jill completed a residency in Lauscha, Germany over the autumn of 2023, where she experimented with the powder printing technique as seen through her piece Water Surface Study Assemblage.

@jilbella 
@stoodio.oodio 
glassgirljill.wixsite.com/mysite 

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