About the Artist
My name is Jillian (Lee) Allen, and I make art. Mostly because I am a college art major, but sometimes I have free time and art outside of class. I am working on earning my Bachelor of Fine Arts in 3D Studio Art with an emphasis in Sculpture. I am also a double major working on my Bachelor of Science in Biology, and I am minoring in Anthropology.
As a child, drawing was one of my very favorite hobbies. I loved to doodle, especially when it came to animals. Of course at a young age, everyone loves to draw, but the first time I was set apart from my peers and realized I really had a talent was in kindergarten, when everyone else in the class was fisting their markers and scribbling and scrawling on their papers. I however was using colored pencils and the dinosaur stencils to make a compositionally pleasing piece, that was very orderly and structured and had a great attention to detail, with realistic colors for the dinosaurs. My teacher showed it to the art instructor next door who told me to keep up the great work, and from there I knew I wanted to keep art in my life forever. In elementary and middle school, there weren’t art classes—which was a bummer for me developmentally, but I got by with doodling in my free time. High school brought the perspectives and experiences of three different art teachers, from whom I gained some basic but very necessary skills, as well as the opportunity to learn two and three dimensional perspective drawing and how to cut glass and solder. I owe it to my final high school art teacher for encouraging me to attend National Portfolio Day in my senior year of high school, where I came across my current university’s booth and was instantly impressed by their visual arts program, for not being an art school. After much debate over what I wanted to do with my life (I didn’t want to just be an artist and forgo my love for science and my duty to give back to the world, nor did I want to be an art therapist which was the only combination of art and contribution I could think of at the time), I finally discovered my dream career. Many hours of searching online led me to the epiphany that I am following now: I want to be a reconstructive model artist at the fossil lab of a natural history museum, working to sculpt models of prehistoric life for the museum’s displays and for commissioned pieces. This is why I am here today, at pursuing both a Biology and a 3D Studio Arts degree, to be able to marry my interests and educate the world with my work. Besides my art studies, I design and create corsages, boutonnieres, and garters for proms, weddings, and the like. It's a very small side business right now but I would like to cater to a larger customer base and help it grow. I sincerely enjoy making these flower creations and would love to share my creations for more special occasions. You can check out my designs on my commercial Facebook page, 100% JUNK, where I also have jewelry and other non-made-to-order creations for sale. (I swear someday I will get an Etsy account up and running!) Other than all this art talk, I have a cat Annabell and three dogs that I love and miss dearly, as I am working as Community Advisor (think RA) in the residence halls while at school. And I have friends and family too of course, but pets are more fun and acceptable and non-creepy to share pictures of. The End. |
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