artists > Jill Birschbach

Jill Birschbach (b.1968, Beaver Dam, WI) is an Evanston based sculptor using ceramic
materials to explore the psychology of structure. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Nebraska.

She exhibits her work nationally and has been included in shows at Dubuque Museum of
Art, Elmhurst Art Museum, Rockford Art Museum, AKAR Gallery, Red Lodge Clay
Center, The Clay Studio, Contemporary Craft in Pittsburgh, Morean Center for Clay,
and Baltimore Clayworks, among others.

Jill shares studio space at the Midwest Clay Guild in Skokie, IL. When not in the studio she is a senior research editor for Getty Images in Chicago. She lives with her husband and two cats in South Evanston.

Artist Statement
On family trips we often took factory tours, visited dams and power plants. My dad
worked for the electric company and these were places that interested him. As a college
student I worked in a factory in the summers. My small hometown had industry and food
processing plants, older buildings and remnants from the 1800s.

My pieces exist in that context. They are mechanical looking like an indeterminate
machine part. They have holes stamped in regular intervals like a sheet of pegboard. I
glaze them with crusty, bumpy and peeling surfaces to emphasize the grittiness. That
crustiness contrasts with other fluid, corporeal glazes. The effect is both beauty and
repulsion.

The sculptures frequently have exposed sections that reveal a fragile internal
scaffolding—an architectural cutaway that underscores the instability and unsettling
foundation of the structure.