Pretty Fun Things

Art in June! View the new work at...

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 15:08:00 -0400

Art in June! View the new work at etsy.com/shop/prettyfunthings

Some newer “Fragments” tile pieces (Mostly Sold, but...

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 15:02:00 -0400

Some newer “Fragments” tile pieces (Mostly Sold, but check www.etsy.com/shop/prettyfunthings for new pieces!

A snippit from Fragments of Spring, which opened on June 18th...

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 14:54:00 -0400

A snippit from Fragments of Spring, which opened on June 18th 2010 at Collective, a redesigned vintage boutique in the Mission district of San Francisco.

Combining vintage patterns and materials with my black and white...

Sun, 18 Apr 2010 15:56:00 -0400

Combining vintage patterns and materials with my black and white photography, I aim to bring beautiful history and fashion to life, telling what would have been an untold story. Keep checking the blog at www.jillianwest.com for more info on exhibitions and new releases on Etsy!

Here’s a sample from Down from the Rafters, my first San Francisco showing at Reinvintage SF in the Bernal Heights area.

After hearing of an art competition at a local college, I spent...

Sun, 18 Apr 2010 15:48:58 -0400

After hearing of an art competition at a local college, I spent a few days brainstorming on how I could express the theme “drawing” without literally drawing something. The rules were vague and encouraged thinking outside the box. I thought about drawing something and cutting it up, and then slept on it. I woke up thinking about how art is everywhere. We just don’t notice it. I started looking carefully at what was in front of me and started collecting snippets of it. Somehow that lead to tiling it and putting it in metal. Each tile was a fragment of a larger story. And like Paper Dolls, I couldn’t stop. Until I moved back to America and learned that I couldn’t buy the supplies! I visited every hardware store and called around, even contacted the Australian companies for info on stockists. None. The good news is that I’ve just come back from a visit to Australia and I brought a heap of materials. More coming soon!

The sad thing about vintage materials and patterns is that they...

Sun, 18 Apr 2010 15:27:56 -0400

The sad thing about vintage materials and patterns is that they live in boxes and at flea markets, rarely coming out to play and be a part of our world today. A few years ago, I started bringing these patterns to life by putting them into my photography, creating stories around them using vintage stamps, story books and anything else that would help complete the scene. These have mostly sold, but keep checking back at www.etsy.com/shop/prettyfunthings and my blog for more info on exhibitions and new pieces.

Shortly after graduating from college, I packed up my sunny...

Sun, 18 Apr 2010 15:13:43 -0400

Shortly after graduating from college, I packed up my sunny California life and moved to London. It was dark, cold, and I was getting paid just enough to survive. After a few months at a terrible temp job, I got a job in the press office of the government’s prosecution branch, meaning that part of my job was going a stack of newspapers every morning to fact check. After a few days, I started ripping up the colorful weekend inserts and making copies of the insane articles about what was happening in the criminal world of London (a man eating a friend’s brains, someone being axed through the head in the safest neighborhood, etc). I started collaging. Michael Jackson was on trial and we all watched in awe. The criminals we were dealing with were on trial and we got ready for new press. It was exciting and I slowly woke up from the darkness. And I now have a notebook filled with these collages, some with recipes, some with insane ads for plastic surgery, some with found art. These are a few of them.

I was always the girl with a paint brush behind her ear. ...

Sun, 18 Apr 2010 14:22:06 -0400

I was always the girl with a paint brush behind her ear. Probably literally. I was always painting something, or spilling paint on the carpet and accidentally painting the walls because I hadn’t washed the brush behind my ear. When I started traveling a lot after college, I moved to photography and slowly lost my desire to paint. It feels foreign to me now, but it was a huge part of me for many years, and so I’ve included a snippet of what my art world used to be. Drawing, painting, doing murals, and dabbling in anything else art.

I never knew how obsessed I’d become with old photos and...

Sun, 18 Apr 2010 13:45:13 -0400

I never knew how obsessed I’d become with old photos and the stories they tell until my grandmother started giving me her originals little by little. These were a piece of me, a part of my history. Many of these live on my walls with photos of my husband’s history too. Then one day, I stumbled upon a big album of someone’s life and was overcome with sadness. What happened in Marlyn’s life that resulted in her history being sold for $50? I bought most of the photos and plan on exhibiting them in an awesome way one day to celebrate her life.

I also almost always have a book in my hand and get much of my inspiration from amazing writers, both classical and modern (from Lewis Carroll to Haruki Murakami). Good music and old television (Addams Family) excite me as well. And of course, good friends, my family & husband, and role models, like Joy Bianchi (see gorgeous woman on cat walk) keep me excited to make beautiful things.