Mayor's Gallery - September 2024: Jill Allyn Stafford’s “This is How I Remember Paradise”

Sacramento (Sept. 4, 2024) - The Mayor’s Gallery features “This is How I Remember Paradise” by Jill Allyn Stafford for the month of September. 

Jill Allyn Stafford is a collage and mixed media artist based out of Sacramento. Stafford’s experimentation with collage as an art form began as a way to fashion new stories from images she found in magazines and books. Currently, she creates work using not only found paper, but also photographs she’s taken, stamps, envelopes, and vintage papers saved in her family for generations.

"This is How I Remember Paradise" conveys the beauty that once surrounded Stafford’s mother, Dossue Thornton's, home before it was lost in the 2018 Paradise Fire. Thornton, who lived in Paradise and dreamed of retiring there, had her house surrounded by lush dogwoods and fruit trees before it was sadly destroyed during the November fire.

Stafford’s work has been exhibited in numerous galleries and venues in Sacramento, as well as in New York and the UK. Her work has also been published in Sacramento Magazine, Insight Magazine and Submerge Magazine.

When Stafford isn’t creating art, she is a full-time paralegal and teaches collage classes.  She shares a studio in Studio 4 in the ARTHOUSE Gallery & Studios in Sacramento.

If you would like to see more of Stafford’s work, click here.  You can also email her at jill.stafford@gmail.com