Tag Archives: jill bliss

The Exquisite Book Signing and Live Drawing event tonight!

October 14, 2010Events, Illustration Alumni, Illustration Faculty, Illustration Industry, Publicationscaitlin keegan, eunice moyle, grain edit, jill bliss, jordin isip, julia rothman, kelly lynn jones, lisa congdon, lorena siminovich, mike perry, rare device, susie ghahremani, the exquisite book, tom neelyamt

If you’re in San Francisco tonight, stop by The Exquisite Book Signing and & Live Drawing event at Rare Device. Artists in attendance will include Julia Rothman, Lisa Congdon, Caitlin Keegan, Susie Ghahremani, Kelly Lynn Jones (Little Paper Airplanes), Tom Neely, Eunice Moyle and Lorena Siminovich. Grain Edit hipped us to the publisher details and image below:

More details on the book:

In The Exquisite Book, one hundred indie artists play an ingenious version of the Exquisite Corpse drawing game. Each adorns a page with artwork—having seen only the page of the artist immediately prior and using a single horizon line to connect the two. Some continue the “story” quite literally while others build on the previous page in more fanciful ways. This astonishing volume’s format is as unique as its content, with each of the book’s ten chapters residing on a ten-page accordion pull-out, allowing readers to view the art continuously. With an illustrated foreword by Dave Eggers, and art from such luminaries as James Jean and (Parsons Illustration Alum) Jill Bliss, this charming book is, simply, exquisite.

You can pick up a copy of the book here.

Jill isn’t the only Parsons Illustration-related person in the book: Illustration faculty members Jordin Isip and Mike Perry are in on the action as well! Congrats to all.

Illustration Alum Jill Bliss featured on 20×200

September 10, 2009Illustration Alumni, Illustration Industry, Inspiration, News20x200, drawing, jen bekman, jill bliss, nature, prints, treehousesamt

Illustration Alum Jill Bliss is staying busy. Two different prints of hers were recently featured on Jen Bekman’s 20×200 website. Here is Jill’s artist statement:

In all the work that I do, I’m interested in the boundaries between separate communities or ideas—the common ground where things intersect, cross-pollinate and co-habitate.

In ecology, an area that contains habitats common to two communities, as well as others unique to the transition zone itself, is called the ecotone. This area is typically characterized by greater species diversity and population density than occur in either of the individual communities.

In my mind, “people, plants and animals” or “art, craft and design” are not so different from one another. I believe that everything and everyone are interconnected and similar—it’s just a matter of each functioning with a different set of materials, and at varying speeds and scales. I hope to call attention to these ideas in my work, and to celebrate the small overlooked details that showcase these interconnections and samenesses.

Head over to 20×200’s site and there might still be some of Jill’s prints available. And of course, check out Jill’s website for more goods and information.

Keep up the amazing work, Jill!

[seen above: Handmade Treehomes, #1A by Jill Bliss]

Alum Jill Bliss is interviewed about sustainable art

February 25, 2009Illustration Alumni, Illustration Industry, Interviewsgreen, Illustration, jill bliss, sustainableamt

bliss-illustration

Parsons Illustration alum Jill Bliss was recently interviewed for Ecopreneurist. Here’s a snippet of what she had to say

Crafts have always been historically rooted in all that is trendy in the hot, ‘green market’ today: local, sustainable and frugal. And, crafts are are gaining more sex appeal in part thanks to sites like Etsy.com, which has been described by the New York Times as a “cross between Amazon, eBay and your grandmother’s closet”. Can you say more about the recent spotlight on crafts?

When I started in 2001, the burgeoning interest in crafts was a direct response to the ’soullessness’ of technology, a reaction against consumerism and a return to learning to doing things for yourself. It was a new form of punk-rock, with roots tied to the indie-music scene. I started my business out of necessity – I’d just returned home to San Francisco in time to witness the dot-com crash and couldn’t find a job working for someone else. So I created my own job. I began making things from whatever I had at hand in my studio, created a retail website and peddled my wares to local shops, at indie-music shows, and organized a few local craft sales events with other like-minded people.

This new crafts movement has grown tremendously since then with the advent of Etsy and large corporate sponsorship! It satisfies a need we all have to not only create things with our own hands, but to also have a dialog with, and get to know, others who make the things we buy and use. we’ve matured as consumers. We now want to know the story behind the product we buy and use. It’s no longer satisfying to buy just another throw-away item made in inhumane conditions by an unknown person in a faraway land.

From your Etsy profile, you say that you hope to encourage a more thoughtful art and design industry that focuses on reusable or sustainable materials and less consumption. Can you give us some examples of your creations that do this?

With everything I make, I use repurposed or recycled materials as much as possible and try to make only enough to satisfy demand. It’s important to me to only produce enough of a product that I can actually sell, or that I can make something else from if it doesn’t. Printing or making too many of something, even if it’s made from recycled materials, is just as wasteful as using new materials.

Read the entire interview here. And make sure to check out Jill’s website and Etsy shop for more of her work.

[lovely images above from Jill’s illustration portfolio]

Giant Robot announces an exhibition with Illustration Alum Jill Bliss

November 26, 2007Events, Exhibitions, Illustration Alumni, Newsgiant robot, hidden habitats, Illustration, Illustration Alumni, jill bliss, Parsonsamt

jill bliss @ giant robot

Jill Bliss and Saelee Oh at GR2
Los Angeles, CA
December 8 – January 9

Giant Robot presents Hidden Habitats, an art show featuring the work of Jill Bliss and Salee Oh. Jill graduated from the Illustration department and has since given presentations to our students as an alum & visiting artist. Here is an excerpt from the official press release:

Jill Bliss grew up on a family farm in Northern California where everything was hand-built or cultivated-the food, the house, the farm machinery, and even the family computers. Since graduating from the Parsons School of Design & the California College of the Arts, her professional background has included fashion design, illustration, and design theory. Whether designing limited-edition paper goods or fine art pieces, all of her work reveals a fondness for combining fabric, paper, and other found materials.

For this show, the artists will make individual and collaborative drawings, paper cut-outs, sewn soft sculptures, and other pieces that expand on the theme of their third collaborative calendar, Hidden Habitats. The artwork depicts houses, shelters, buildings, and dwellings incorporating and blending into nature. These dwellings are sometimes human-sized, but more often than not sized for real and imagined animals, reptiles, or bugs.

In this body of work, both artists explore the underlying structures of nature, the inherent beauty and interdependence of these structures, and human nature’s interpretation of and dependence upon them. The original drawings, many of which have been altered or expanded upon since the making of the calendar, will also provide insight into the artists’ digital and hand-drawn collaborative process.

For more information about the exhibition, visit the Giant Robot site.

GR2
2062 Sawtelle Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90025
gr2.net
(310) 445-9276

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