Jill grew up on the beach in Florida. She always loved the water, and spent her days swimming, sailing, fishing, and exploring the natural world. After being sent away to high school on a large square-rigged sailing ship (so she couldn’t skip school), Jill decided she wanted to be a ship captain. Her dream was to sail around the world and get paid for it. So she moved to Texas in 1978 to attend the Ocean Marine Technology program at Brazosport College in Lake Jackson.
Jill has kept a home base in Lake Jackson, but has been able to travel to many interesting places over the years. Until recently, she has spent most of my time working on the water: fishing vessels, tankers, dive boats, yachts, construction vessels, heavy lift ships, etc. She has traveled around the world, both for work and for fun. Mexico, Tanzania, Korea, Ireland, Singapore, China, Thailand, are all fantastic places to be. Jill has always loved photography and has taken hundreds of photos of everything she sees. The photos have improved greatly with practice (and upgrading from the disposable cameras of her high school adventures on the sailing ships).
Jill takes pictures of many different things, but concentrates on seascapes-boats, ships, offshore life-travel, animals, nature, weather, food, and architecture. She loves night photography, too.
Jill has more time to spend on her art lately. She always fiddled around with it - drawing, painting, writing, playing music - but hasn’t really done anything with it since Junior High school. She might get bored every once in a while out on a ship somewhere and come up with something out of her head (like her pastel Red Starfish she drew while she was on a tuna boat somewhere in the South Pacific). She started taking occasional classes with Dolores Reynolds (oil) and then Robert Ruhmann (watercolor) and joined the Brazosport Art League. Jill has been concentrating on learning how to paint water, using oil and watercolor paints. She started writing a blog (www.captainjillsjourneys.com) as a way to improve her writing and connect with people around the world.
She entered a couple of pastels in the Brazoria County Fair art show and won a couple of prizes. She has entered a couple of paintings in the Gallery at the Brazosport Center for Arts and Science.
Between teaching (maritime) at San Jacinto Maritime College and looking for a real job back at sea, Jill keeps busy with writing (published in Maritime Executive, Incomes Abroad, Sidelights), uploading her photos to Bigstock, Alamy, Dreamstime and other stock sites. Jill is also online at Society6 and Fine Art America.