RURAL INTELLIGENCE

The Rural We: Jen Abbott-Tillou

By Jo Ann Jaacks

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.