Hello! I'm Jillian.

Nice to meet you! Thank you for showing interest in my work.

My story begins when I was young and the crayon was my wand and the swing set was my castle. I began traveling in that age, which profoundly affected who I have become/am becoming. Because of this, my imagination blossomed into something that was bigger than my hometown with a vision for universal togetherness. This is the root of my love to create.

I believe in bringing joy, laughter, curiosity, and a sense of belonging to people through art. My goal is to create something that will spark an idea, release a thought, plant a seed, or cause the viewer to softly utter the word "yes". In my personal experience, I find that to know and feel known without words through creativity is a beautiful and healing thing. I aspire to harness that within my own work. 

Much of my work stems from an imaginary world where plants happily grow out of everything and animals wear sweaters. I like to include themes of nature, travel, and magical realism. Watercolor and pen are my primary mediums, but I also enjoy gouache and block printing.  

If you find yourself interested and want to know more, check out my portfolio page or shoot me a message via the contact page. I look forward to working with you!   

-jillian selene bell

Article: A Working Artist in the Modern World
by Mick Selman, Journalism Student

A fox with glasses, flying a kite while sitting on a stool and smoking a cigarette. An old man staring blankly, unaware or unphased by the plants and mushrooms growing out of his head. A sidewalk chalk image of an African woman with striking blue hair. These are all original drawings created by Jillian Rutherford.

She has been working as a freelance artist and illustrator for two years now, producing prints, greeting cards and many other things. When her time isn’t spent creating artwork, she helps children to appreciate the art all around them by working for the Any Given Child program. “Plainly speaking, I give interactive and guided tours to 6th grade students,” she said. “I feel that my work is all very interconnected, and I love it.”

Even as a child, Rutherford always had an appreciation for the artwork she found. “I’ve always had creative bones in me,” she said. “I grew up traveling from a young age which exposed me to so much culture art and nature.” When she was in high school she took advanced studio art and art history classes to increase her understanding of the artwork that surrounded her and she said she “fell in love” with learning about art from around the world coming from so many different people and cultures. “I knew then that it was something I wanted to pursue,” said Rutherford.

The task of living as an artist is not always the easiest for Rutherford, despite growing up with a vivid imagination, creating worlds in her head and finding enjoyment in drawing from a young age. “Becoming a working artist in the modern world has been the real learning curve,” she said. Rutherford still struggles with artists block and said she has to schedule her time wisely to balance the work she needs to do but that doesn’t always help. “Sometimes I get into my studio and I completely have no idea what to do. And then other times I am grocery shopping and have this crazy idea that I have to start making right then, otherwise I might forget it,” said Rutherford.  

Rutherford has found enjoyment in what she does but creating art is not her only goal. “Ideally, I would love to study developmental psychology and illustration to really have a well-rounded approach on kids’ literature,” she said. “Kids’ brains are sponges, so I want to be really intentional with the way I create these stories. Encouraging the artistic spark in children is something very important to Rutherford who said that her main goal as an artist would be to illustrate children’s books. “Having had such an enriched literary experience as a child, I really, want to invest in other kids’ futures,” she said.

Art in the modern world is a topic that Rutherford has consciously been aware of for a long time now. She said she feels like people have a habit of filtering out what they don’t understand immediately. “…  The viewer has to sit and wait and let it sink it and be a little uncomfortable,” she said. “That's when the viewer either feels a deep celebration or such uncomfort that they decide to disagree… Art is less of a consumable, and more of an on-going, life-enriching experience. And I think that has much more to do with the viewer than the art itself.” Rutherford said she believes that the people who can wait and allow themselves to be uncomfortable are the ones who have the patience and ability to find the true beauty in art.