Born in Surrey England, Jillian Herrigel grew up in Northern Virginia spending many home leave holidays touring coastal villages of Britain. Earning a degree in Art History and later a Master in Fine Art Education, she taught art for 14 years in a blue-ribbon school district in New Jersey. After having summered for years in a fishing village in Maine, Jillian changed direction in 2006 from teaching elementary art to work full time as an artist when she purchased a 19th-century farm house in Bath, Maine. Jillian believes a successful work conveys the interaction of her intuitive connection to the scene or idea, a structure based on a combination of color, shapes, line, and techniques, as well as accidental events. She describes her work as “imaginative realism.”