Jennifer Phillips was born in New Zealand and as a child loved making art. She entered competitions and won prizes for her work that ranged from sand saucer designs to seed necklaces. At the age of six her teacher entered her plasticine model in the Hokitika District High School Centennial Flower Show where she competed in the Open section against High School children to win second place.
In 1969 Phillips moved to Australia where the landscape made a deep impression on her. While in Australia she was recognised and honoured as a youth leader, promising writer and a talented artist, achieving the highest possible marks for the state school art exams.
She continued to win prizes including the “Conserve Water Art Poster” out of 800 students’ entries. She had her work published in newspapers and magazines, and was an energetic Girl Guide leader who was sponsored to attend an international guide camp. She started a junior art group and helped to arrange her first group exhibition where she sold her first acrylic piece. She spent much of her spare time making art, swimming and athletic training, becoming an Australian state champion athlete when she was fourteen. She was invited to join the Australian Olympic training squad but did not take up the offer. Instead at the age of seventeen she returned to New Zealand and six months later entered Teachers College.
In 1973 she was sponsored to attend the Canterbury Arts Workshop for gifted secondary art students mostly as an observer to explore the potential of holding multi-arts workshops. In 1974 she held her first solo art exhibition in the Massey University Library and completed her three years at the Palmerston North Teachers College (now College of Education) majoring in art and maths. She also completed a third of a degree at the same time. She went on to teach in a number of Hawkes Bay Primary Schools for eight years, continued to train for athletics and squash and enjoyed hosting overseas visitors who belonged to Mensa or different Christian groups.
In 1977 she married Peter and five years later their first child was born. She left teaching and worked from home on a range of projects while rearing three children and recovering from four miscarriages and a number of car accidents. These projects included completing a degree in Education and earning the award of Massey Scholar, which is given to the top five percent of students. She also completed a certificate course in Lay Preaching and spent fifteen years preaching and taking Church services. In the early 1980s she started supervising one of the first licensed preschools, but was involved in the first of five car accidents and had to close the preschool down. After recovering sufficiently, she did some relief teaching and continued to write songs and poems, make artworks and screen-printed items. Phillips also published four books, jointly owned and operated a printing business, bought and maintained rental properties and was on a number of voluntary committees.
Phillips returned to part-time teaching in 1995 at a Napier secondary school, where she taught art, visual merchandising and retail as well as some adult classes in screen-printing and guitar. She was also involved in teaching and assessing classroom management as part of her role as a voluntary Christian Educator in Schools and committee member on the District Committee of the Churches Education Commission.
In 2000 Phillips emigrated to Australia and because she had worked in a home-based printing business designing business cards, flyers and logos and had taught herself HTML, she was able to create websites that opened the door for teaching IT at secondary schools and developing digital art skills. In 2003 she was the guest poet at a New Zealand wine evening, where she shared from her book “© 2000 From New Zealand”, which contains some of her art and visual poetry. She also took on a two-year term in the position of president of the ACT branch of the Australian Federation of University Women and completed an IT Diploma in multimedia integration, which opened the door for her to use her computer art skills.
In 2004 Phillips published her fifth book, “You Can Make A Web Site”, completed a certificate in Workplace Training and Assessment and began a certificate in Screen enabling her to make 3D animated movies. She also started creating and exhibiting her digital art.
In 2006 she was awarded an honourable Diploma of Excellence in the “Realtime” Juried Online Global Art Annual Award and was given the “People’s Choice Award” for “loved – Never Forgotten” at the “Art Views in the Hills” exhibition in Wanniassa, ACT. She also received an award for her idea for the “Canberra 100” celebrations.
In 2007 Phillips was awarded the honourable Diploma of Excellence again in the “Art Now 2” Juried Online Global Art Annual Award and was given the “People’s Choice Award” for “Hour glass view- we party on without much forethought” at the “Art Overboard awards” exhibition in Bungendore, NSW.
In 2008 her artwork was published on the front of a car and in a number of Canberra papers and three of her artworks with commentaries were published in the art book “Being Human” curated by Stuart Davey.
Phillips has continued to exhibit and sell her art in a variety of galleries on and off line. In 2010 she was awarded the Victoria Gibbon Prize for academic excellence in Theology studies.
- Writers:
- Phillips, Jennifer
- Date written:
- 2008
- Last updated:
- 2011
