selection of weekly quilts, each 6″x8″, copyright Jeanne Williamson 2005

Like our most recent Quilt Artist of the Week, Jeanne Williamson makes journal quilts. If Ms. Moll is showing us how time becomes a blended, multitextured blur, Ms. Williamson is on the opposite extreme, reflecting the passage of time in concrete, discrete measures. From 1999-2005 she made one small quilt a week, for a total of 365 weeks. The result is extraordinary not only for the sheer discipline involved, but for range of colors, techniques, and
themes at work, and how the individual pieces work together as a whole and show the evolution of her voice as an art quilter. Each year she inagurated new dimensions just to shake things up and deal with new design challenges. Shortly after beginning the project she began writing notes on the backs of the quilts as a reminder of the events and thoughts that influenced their creation.

Orange Construction Fence Series #38, 49″x30.5″, copyright Jeanne Williamson 2005

You may notice that the project started out with more representational quilts, and that 2005 is largely abstract. The repeated oval and rounded-square shapes that begin to appear later in the project are explored at a larger scale in her stitched monoprints: they are actually made using construction fences! These works are whole-cloth, monoprinted with fence sections then painted and stamped with other forms and shapes. Asked about why she uses this ubiquitous material in such an unusual way, she told me, “I love grids, and I was instantly attracted to the construction fences when I first noticed them. After seeing that there were many sizes and shapes of the grids, that the orange plastic sagged in the heat of the sun, and cracked in cold temperatures, I was hooked on them. Each time I finish one piece, I have at least one or two more images in mind for my next pieces. If I run out of ideas, I’ll stop, but for the time being, I have way too many ideas to stop now.”

Ms. Willamson’s “Orange Construction Fence Series #29″ won Best of Show and the McCarthy Award at Quilt National 2005, and was featured on the cover of the Quilt National 2005 catalog.

See a solo exhibition of Ms. Williamson’s work at the Danforth Museum of Art in Framingham, Massachusetts through June 4, 2006. She is also in a couple group exhibits (more info on her website.)