About the Artist


Jill MacKay

Jill MacKay is an accomplished artist, imaginative designer and published author. Coming from a fine arts background, she has mastered many mediums and possesses diverse skill sets. Add to this her 20 plus years of wide-ranging, cross industry, creative work experience, and you have one of the most talented, diversified and sought-after designers working in the industry today.

As a creative designer, MacKay's clients are major manufacturers from the craft, paper, home decor and giftware industries. She consults, licenses her artwork, designs products and kits. She sculpts originals for mass production, creates molds, produces videos, serves as on-air talent, acts as a representative at trade shows, lectures, teaches, presents and publishes. Presently she is working as a creative consultant, spokesperson and product designer for Darice, Inc. Jill is also presently producing licensed designs for rugs, fabric design and is having a line of jewelry produced in Thailand. For several years Jill was the jewelry designer for the nationally syndicated daytime drama: The Guiding Light. She has also designed pieces for Paramount Studios: Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Jill's book, Creative Garden Mosaics, in its second printing, published by Lark Books, secures her a place as a respected author. It is sought after not only for its comprehensive technical knowledge but also for its unique approach to strong project design. As a writer, MacKay regularly contributes her designs and educational content to publishers for books and national magazines. MacKay's work has been published in over a dozen books and in over thirty magazines nationwide.
As a fine artist Jill is nationally known for her technical craftsmanship as a sculptor. She works in bronze and large-scale, steel-reinforced cement sculptures that are then covered with exquisite, colorful mosaic. Her permanent large-scale installations reside primarily in private collections. Two large-scale public commissions were installed at the Public Libraries in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 2004 and 2005.
Serving others through the arts is an important aspect of Jill's life about which she feels very passionate. Working as a community artist within special populations (mainly the bereft and mentally ill), Jill does local and national outreach. In the year 2000 the National Endowment for the Arts and the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, choosing from a pool of over 5,000 artists, identified Jill as one of the top 300 artists in our country today who use the arts as a vehicle to help others and aid in the healing of social problems.

Jill MacKay is a vital and authentic person, well-established in her work, a designer who displays creativity, passion and commitment in all of her efforts. Be it designing, illustrating, sculpting, or consulting, her work communicates a joy of the creative process. She has been a creative freelancer now for 21 years under the business name of J.MacKay. Jill, mother of two, lives with her 17 year old son Taylor (and misses her daughter Ashley now residing in Georgia) and works from her studio in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.