Jennifer Abbott-Tillou is a physical therapist, personal trainer and artist who grew up in Litchfield, Conn. She left the area and had a business, Fitness Therapists, in Wellesley, Mass. for 17 years. While she ran it, she was creating art on and off. By 2009, her business had grown, she was a single mom and she wanted more greenery in her life. That led her back to Litchfield County, and eventually to her own contemporary and kinetic sculpture studio, Gallery 7, in Torrington. On April 6, from 5-8 p.m., she is hosting the gallery’s first opening. My father was a surgeon at Charlotte Hungerford Hospital and when I was young I would go on rounds with him after church. We’d walk by the physical therapy department. That’s how I got interested in PT (plus my mom was a physical therapist). My past brought me to science, but I always had a pull to the artistic.
I moved back to Litchfield County because I wanted more balance in my life. I rented space at the Switch Factory in Bantam and started creating works, but with more time and dedication. Eventually I had to make a living again, so I started another personal training and yoga business. In my artistic life, I was moving toward sculpture, and later found studio and gallery space in Torrington, right across from the Warner Theatre. I’ve always been drawn to organic things — wood, driftwood, things found in nature. I like the shiny brightness of copper and then distressing it with acids, and juxtaposing it with driftwood. I also like corroded metal things — I get a lot of my materials from Home Depot! More recently I’ve started working with acrylic, which is bright and shiny, the opposite of organic. For instance, I’ll pair antlers and plexiglass pieces — the natural with the opposite. My work comes from emotion, feeling and experience, and the conflicts between pain and beauty. There is so much beauty in the female form. My background in physical therapy is an influence. I’m drawn to reimagining nudes in all kinds of incarnations and shapes. Rarely are they symmetrical, because humans aren’t symmetrical.
Over the years, I’ve sold pieces to private homes, and had commissions. I realized people like my work, so I thought, let me put up my work and see what happens. I haven’t quit my day job, but it’s important and feels authentic for me to do this. I’ve loved Torrington my entire life, and still do. To be part of bringing more excitement to Torrington is very fulfilling to me. I’m a longtime local, and so is my husband, who owns Jeffrey Tillou Antiques on the Litchfield Green. My father-in-law is a prominent arts and antique dealer in Litchfield (he owns the old Brooks Bank Building across from the YMCA in Torrington), and his wife was a painter. I definitely married into a long line of artistic people.
