Born in Staffordshire, England, Jillian Barber grew up in Westerly, RI and graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design. At RISD she studied ceramics with Norm Schulman and Robert Archambeau and glassblowing with Dale Chihuly. Mythical portraits and imaginary creatures are enduring themes in Barber’s ceramic sculpture. An artist from childhood, her fascination with nature, animals, creatures of the sea, faces, pageantry, and costume continues today. Her expressive work creates a personal mythology of dreamlike images. The portraits are exotic, richly textured, exquisitely detailed, and reminiscent of past cultures. Often working from plaster life castings, Barber’s magical masks are mysterious and timeless. Faces are framed by impressions of vintage lace and shells, delicate clay flowers, leaves, and dragons and birds.  The Greenman, symbol of rebirth and regeneration, is a favorite image. Feminine faces become goddess, deva, queen, and fairy princess.

Other masks are much larger, totally from the imagination, free form, grand, combining lacey and sculptural forms, and tell visual stories. 

For over 30 years, Barber was mask and costume designer for the Chorus of Westerly’s Celebration of Twelfth Night. Dragons, unicorns, wild boars, stags, and wolves came alive on stage. Her fascination with mythical beasts, fairies, kings and queens had come to be and was also translated into clay. Later the Sea Creature series emerged with patterned fish, sea horses, turtles, and the very popular mermaids. 

A retrospective, Vintage Jillian, was held at the Newport Art Museum in 2006. A large ceramic creature named Katmandu is in the permanent collection. A tall jardiniere is also in the permanent collection of the Mystic Museum of Art. In September 2022, Barber mounted a 50 year Retrospective in the Hoxie Gallery at the Westerly Library. This year she curated and mounted a four woman exhibit titled Green Women at the Westerly Library for the month of November, 2023.  

Barber was artist-in-residence at the Ocean House in Watch Hill in January 2019 and 2020. Her work received a Fellowship in Design from the RI State Council on the Arts and has received over one hundred awards including many from the Katherine Forest Craft Foundation for excellence in Ceramics. Presently Barber is a member of DeBlois Gallery, Newport, Wickford Art Association, the South County Art Association, the Newport Art Museum, the Mystic Museum of Art, the Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts, Quononoquott Garden Club.

Barber’s work  can be seen at the Charlestown Gallery, DeBlois Gallery in Newport, the Different Drummer in Wickford, RI, the Fuller Gallery in Jamestown, RI  and in her home studio in Jamestown. This July, 2024, will be Barber’s 28th annual Wickford Art Festival!