Ellamarie Packard and Jackson Woolley met and married while teaching at the Francis W. Parker School in San Diego. After Jackson served in the army during WWII, the couple moved to Claremont, California, where he studied art at Claremont Graduate School. While there, the Woolleys became an important facet of the Pomona Valley art community. They were introduced to enameling in 1947 via a demonstration by ceramist Richard Petterson at Scripps College, an experience that changed the trajectory of their lives.
The Woolleys began experimenting with enamels almost immediately and, between 1947 and 1953, made collaborative and predominantly functional pieces. They found inspiration in Cubist paintings and other modern art and, throughout the 1950s, began producing wall-mounted plaques independently from each other and developing their own unique formal and abstract visual languages. Jackson cut copper panels into smaller segments and applied layers of enamel, creating textured, opulent surfaces, whereas Ellamarie’s work exhibits more Pop and Op art tendencies.
The Woolleys were a major force in the advancement of enameling as an artform and left behind a rich and varied body of work, from functional objets d’art to large-scale architectural murals.
There are things you can do in enamel that you can’t do in anything else… The permanence of the color and that marvelous surface and depth of color that gives it so much life.
Ellamarie Woolley
