Jill Baker Gower
Jill has been a maker for as long as she can remember. Creating by hand has been what has fueled her soul and provided a sense of belonging. Jill currently resides and has a studio near Dallas, TX. She is also a jewelry/metals educator and has been teaching for 18 years. Jill has a bachelor's degree in Art Education from the University of Wisconsin - Madison and a Master of Fine Arts degree in Metals from Arizona State University. She is originally from the Chicago area.
Jill has taught metals and jewelry courses and workshops at universities, craft schools, and colleges across the U.S. She was an associate professor of art with tenure at Rowan University in Glassboro, N.J., where she headed the metals program from 2007 to 2018. Jill has exhibited her one-of-a-kind studio jewelry and sculpture in numerous exhibitions nationwide. In 2019, she had a solo exhibition at the Metal Museum in Memphis, TN. Her work has been published in Metalsmith magazine, the book CAST, Little Dreams in Glass and Metal: Enameling in America 1920 to the Present, and is in the permanent collections of The Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Penn., the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Conn., the Metal Museum, Memphis, Tenn., The Enamel Arts Foundation, Los Angeles, and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, Gatlinburg, Tenn.
Jill is a former resident artist of Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg, Tenn. She served on the Board of Directors for the Society of North American Goldsmiths, SNAG, from 2016 to 2019. In 2015, Jill received the New Jersey State Council on the Arts Individual Artist Fellowship.