Jill Quadagno is Professor of Sociology at Florida State University where she holds the Mildred and Claude Pepper Eminent Scholar Chair in Social Gerontology. She is the author of 12 books and more than 50 articles on aging, health and social policy issues.
Jill has been drawing and painting for most of her life, encouraged by her two aunts who were professional artists. Recently she has studied oil painting with Kevin MacPherson, Michael Chesley Johnson, and John Stanford. She views writing and art as different but complementary forms of creative expression. While her writing involves more rational thought processes, her paintings express her emotional response to beauty in nature. They are not an exact representation of a particular scene, but rather reflect her desire to capture the sensation of light and color. She paints many subjects but is most intrigued by the beauty of the north Florida landscape with its brilliant light, lush flora and picturesque coastline.
She has exhibited at the City Hall, Thomasville Cultural Center, the Old Armory Gallery, the Gadsden Arts Center and the Claude Pepper Library, where she was part of a three woman show. In 2008 she won honorable mention in the state-wide Senior Art Showcase. In 2009 her painting, Reflections, won Second Place in the Big Bend Senior Art Showcase. She has recently been selected to design the 2010 Christmas card for the National Academy of Social Insurance.
Her paintings are in private collections in New York, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Nashville, Tennessee, Winston Salem, North Carolina, Hanover, New Hampshire and Tallahassee. She is a member of the Artist’s League of Tallahassee and on the Board of Directors of the LeMoyne Center for the Visual Arts.
She can be reached by email at JillQuadagnoArt@comcast.net
