BA, Indiana University
Graduate study, Harvard University

While reading Emerson and Chaucer in college, Gillian drew projectile points in the archaeology lab for her work-study assignment. The illustrations became part of Stone Age Spear and Arrow Points of the Midcontinental and Eastern United States (Justice, IU Press 1987). She persisted in her study of literature, but one semester in graduate school Gillian read too much Henry James, and decided to go back to drawing. In 2000 she exhibited her artwork at the University of Michigan Institute for Humanities. She has illustrated red algae for a forthcoming book and has contributed drawings to Michigan Birds and Natural History, and to the newsletters of the Ann Arbor Ecology Center and the city parks' Natural Area Preservation division. Her illustrations for NAP were inspired by the riverside park she helps tend as a volunteer steward.Gillian also does children's illustration, and has published work in Cricket magazine.

She has one husband, William, and one cat, Emma Woodhouse Goldman Peel.
She still picks up Beowulf now and again.