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“My mother was a great needle woman and I’ve always loved sewing, color and design,” she explains. Surrounded by literally thousands of swatches, bolts and scraps of fabric organized by color, Jeanne works on several pillows simultaneously and keeps concepts alive by grouping different fabric swatches on tabletops around her studio for ongoing consideration. A 30-year resident of Vineyard Haven with her husband, painter Edward Hewett, Jeanne maintains a separate studio several blocks from her downtown home. While the physical space, the basement of an old building just off Main Street, is rather dark and narrow, it is somehow transformed into a place of wonder with its rows and rows of rich fabrics – velvets, corduroys, brocades, silks, lace and antique paisleys – oh, the antique paisleys – that fill the simple room from floor to ceiling. “It’s irregularly orderly,” is her apt characterization. Just mention the word “paisley” and Jeanne’s eyes light up. She has spent more than 30 years collecting paisley fabrics from all over the world, most, she speculates, originating in England or Scotland. She can easily recite the history of these intricate teardrop-patterned fabrics which were first created in India, Persia and Egypt centuries ago. The heyday of paisley was between the mid- to late 1700s and the late 1800s when great numbers of paisley shawls were created in the Middle and Far East as well as in England, Scotland and France. “I love the richness of the colors and the detail of the work,” Jeanne explains, surrounded by hundreds of snippets of paisley, all waiting to find homes in future patchwork pillows of deep jewel hues – fuchsias, teals, purples, garnets, golds and russets. Jeanne’s pillows grace The Granary Gallery on Old County Road in West Tisbury where she is a featured artist. A dozen of her recent works add colorful accents to the gallery’s many antiques and warm country atmosphere. She also exhibits in occasional group shows at the Dragonfly Gallery in Oak Bluffs and Featherstone Center for the Arts. She generously donates her work to Island nonprofits for fundraising events. “I’m known as ‘The Pillow Lady,’” she says, smiling. “It’s pleasing to have an identity.” Jeanne started out making pillows as presents for friends. “People began to ask me to make them special pillows and as I got more and more requests suddenly I had an epiphany. Literally overnight I quit my job and started a cottage industry,” she says. This eventually branched out into clothing, handbags and wall hangings and always more pillows. That was in the mid-1970s and she’s been humming along ever since.
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To call Jeanne Hewett’s one-of-a-kind, handcrafted creations “pillows” seems woefully inadequate as a description of these intricate jeweltoned works of art. Just as a painter approaches her canvas, Jeanne tackles the design and crafting of each patchwork pillow as a unique expression of her love for color, texture and fabric.