The Rural We: Jen Hewett
“I’m not trained in art at all,” says Jen Hewett, a hugely successful printmaker, surface designer and textile artist who lives in Hudson. The artist, who says she’s on her “second or fifth career,” started her career in education, but then owned a stationery business, ran operations for another business, and transitioned back into education. When she was consulting for a human resources firm, she wanted to give herself some projects to do, which led to her life as a professional artist. She’s written several books and among her clients counts Anthropologie, Cost Plus World Market and now, WallPops.
I’m from California and lived in the Bay area for 30 years. Friends from San Francisco had moved to Hudson to start an artist residency program. I started coming here in 2016 and fell in love with the area. When I wasn’t able to come because of Covid, I really missed it. My friends asked if I’d be interested in the buying the building their residency was in. The attic was already set up as an artist’s studio. Living here is different, but a good different.
Jen Hewett's most recent quilting fabric collection, Floradora.
When the economy imploded in 2008, there were no jobs to be had. For almost two years, I didn’t have a regular job, so I was going to the print studio as much as possible to get better at printmaking. I started block printing in 2014. I decided I would do a different print every single week in a year. I’d carve in the evening and print on weekends. It was the early days of Instagram, and people were really interested in learning how to do block printing. I started teaching in person, then online, and eventually wrote a book about block printing.
Currently I mostly do screen printing. Anthropologie came to me when they saw my work and wanted to license my design. With World Market, they came to me with trends in mind and saw work of mine that fit well in those trends.
When I moved into this space, the walls were all white. I designed a wallpaper and shared a photo. People asked me to the sell wallpaper, but I didn’t want to manufacture it. Someone from WallPops reached out to me to do a collection for their peel-and-stick wallpaper. I’m also designing fabric for the home quilting industry, which I sell at local independent fabric stores, like Beetle and Fred in Beacon. Now that I have a darkroom in my basement, I’ve started making my own screens again, so I’ll have a whole slew of products coming out soon to add to those already on my website.
I spend a lot of time at the dog park with my dog, Franny. I haven’t had a yard since I was 17, so I do a lot of gardening. I just started quilting, working on a different block every couple of days. At some point I will piece everything together and have an actual quilt!
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