Welcome!
Emily Gill is currently an Associate Professor of Theatre specializing in Costume Design and Technology at the University of Montevallo in Montevallo, Alabama. She comes to UM from earning an MFA in Drama from the University of Georgia (2007), a freelance design career in Atlanta, Georgia as well as an internship at the Seattle Repertory Theatre (2000-2001). Emily earned a BA in English and Theatre Performance and Design from Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida (2000).
"I was recently struggling to describe my approach to various “art” areas where I find myself- costume design, performance design, course design, graphic design, administration- trying to describe it to a friend who owns an art gallery that is joyfully eclectic, rather like my town, rather like my friendships. Rather like my life, really, by design. The best way I could communicate it within the boundaries of a polite draw on her attention span was “collagist.” I think that word helps to distinguish my approach from those who have extremely eclectic creative dossiers- mad, wild, ecstatic collections of free experience where the only connecting factor is the collector. My pieces and parts are connected more strategically by a sense of purpose, that purpose being showing others how they too can select the bits and put the bits together to make a picture. In a more concrete way of illustrating this idea, my days are varied but with a sense of common outcome: moving from strategically smearing silicone goo (and teaching others how to strategically smear) to convince people the actor who wears it has survived intense fire internal and external, to writing a promotional brief of the work my colleagues do to advocate for the proper resources for them to do it, to preparing a set of images to begin a conversation and anticipate the thing someone dreams of they don’t even recognize yet, to asking the right questions at the right time to lead someone on an introspective journey to realize the amazing truth trapped behind their anxiety to “get it right.” That’s one day. The next will bring more opportunities and situations, but the creative action is the same. Listen. Observe. Consider. Select. Compose."
"I was recently struggling to describe my approach to various “art” areas where I find myself- costume design, performance design, course design, graphic design, administration- trying to describe it to a friend who owns an art gallery that is joyfully eclectic, rather like my town, rather like my friendships. Rather like my life, really, by design. The best way I could communicate it within the boundaries of a polite draw on her attention span was “collagist.” I think that word helps to distinguish my approach from those who have extremely eclectic creative dossiers- mad, wild, ecstatic collections of free experience where the only connecting factor is the collector. My pieces and parts are connected more strategically by a sense of purpose, that purpose being showing others how they too can select the bits and put the bits together to make a picture. In a more concrete way of illustrating this idea, my days are varied but with a sense of common outcome: moving from strategically smearing silicone goo (and teaching others how to strategically smear) to convince people the actor who wears it has survived intense fire internal and external, to writing a promotional brief of the work my colleagues do to advocate for the proper resources for them to do it, to preparing a set of images to begin a conversation and anticipate the thing someone dreams of they don’t even recognize yet, to asking the right questions at the right time to lead someone on an introspective journey to realize the amazing truth trapped behind their anxiety to “get it right.” That’s one day. The next will bring more opportunities and situations, but the creative action is the same. Listen. Observe. Consider. Select. Compose."