About Jillian
Jillian Lukiwski grew up in the four western provinces of Canada and currently makes her home on the bank of the Snake River of Idaho. She makes her living as an independent silversmith, photographer, writer, and farmer.
For the duration of my silversmithing career, which has now spanned 19 consecutive years at the bench, I have struggled to describe or define my design style, perhaps out of fear of not resonating with patrons and supporters or out of a desire to stay free, to not pin myself down to any one definition or category. I have wanted to develop and feel my full wingspan, to learn, grow, and change, and have my studio work evolve with me. There is a sort of lawlessness in my studio (within the boundaries of personal discipline), a freedom that allows me to move between ideas, to try new things, to start and quit directions, to take up interests and inspirations and set them down again as life carries me aloft on unseen currents. To put it simply, I live my life, then put my head down and do my work.
By and large, my inspirations have stemmed from the ways I have chosen to live my life. My life has been lived in connection to place with a keenly felt belongingness to the land on which I do my living. I live in the intermountain West of the USA, on the sagebrush steppe of southern Idaho, on the bank of the beautiful Snake River, on a garlic farm flanked on two sides by public land stretching for thousands and millions of acres. This garlic farm is a humble but prolific spread that sustains my family and is an irrigated jewel in the crown of sagebrush steppe, a proper oasis that restores and rejuvenates all who visit and all who call it home.
Stretching out from our farm is the northernmost part of the ION desert (Idaho/Oregon/Nevada Desert), an inhospitable and merciless region. Ruggedly cut and pocked with deep canyons and flat-topped mesas, this place is also graced with springs, patches of fecundity, and an ever-blowing wind that never ceases to bring change and stampedes of tumbleweeds. It's a unique place, home to a myriad of wild creatures, including myself.
This is a tough and beautiful place to do my living and dying, and I like to think the friendship I have made with the gale force winds that scrub the canyons has served to whittle away at my personhood, leaving behind nothing but a simplified, potent version of myself. This ecosystem and my belonging to it have helped to make me true in the most basic way a person can be true, true as a pronghorn running through the sagebrush — all heart and breath and sharp senses taking in the holy mystery of the beauty that slowly emerges from the sagebrush sea when I am patient enough to sit in wait for it.
Loving this place requires dwelling IN it, like a wild animal would. To be immersed in all aspects of it, in all seasons, in all weather. To burn, to freeze, to grieve loss, to celebrate life, to bloom and fade, to grow wise as the sage, and to keep your family near like the quail and chukar coveys do.
In this landscape, I see the connectivity of holy mystery that binds all life together, and I am filled with eternal yearnings. When I do my work well, those yearnings embed themselves in the jewelry I make. I attempt to let go of how my designs might be received and strive to create jewelry that is true, which is why so many of my designs well up from my own longing for a specific piece of jewelry. I desire to make and wear jewelry that holds meaning for me —jewelry that represents a life experience, a universal truth, a simple thought or understanding, or a pivotal moment or realization that has led me deeper into living.
My designs are not specifically Western in style. Still, I refer to the breadth of my work as "Of The West" because it's rooted more in my personal sense of place and belonging than in culture. It's a reflection of my core values that revolve around: faith, belonging, connection, embracing all that is natural as best as I can, sovereignty over my food, independence, courage, freedom, family, thoughtful and careful stewardship of the resources I have been given, dedication to practice, commitment to truth and beauty.
Thank you kindly for supporting me in my work. It's my joy to serve your soul.