We are pleased to welcome our friend and fellow San Franciscan, Jen Hewett to our ‘Friday Five’ series today.

Jen is a printmaker, surface designer, textile artist, author, and teacher who creates visually layered, printed textiles. We love her color-saturated prints and bold aesthetic.

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To listen to the whole chat, tune into our IGTV here. And to see Jen’s colorful prints, visit her website.

Here is an excerpt from the conversation.

1 – What was your journey to becoming a textile artist?

I had corporate jobs for a number of years and one day in 2008, on a whim, I decided to take a screen printing class as a creative outlet. I was absolutely hooked from the first project! Soon after, I was laid off from my job as it was the beginning of the Great Recession in 2008. I suddenly had all this free time on my hands and ended up going to the print studio, every free moment I had, and was screen-printing on paper. Mostly because I was too scared to try printing on fabric, and being unemployed, I could not afford the cost of experimenting with textiles.

What I began to notice was that people did not know what to do with my prints on paper. And the feedback was that they would like to see my patterns on textile products like tea towels or tote bags. So I decided to leap in and see if I could print on fabric and when I made the leap from paper to fabric, that’s when my work really took off.

But I didn’t think of myself as a textile artist. For years, I saw myself as a printmaker, and I still do actually. It was when I was in London in 2013, and was at the V&A and experienced this really beautiful Turkish textiles exhibit, after just being in Istanbul, when I felt like everything was converging. I had this very clear thought in my head, that I wanted to be a textile designer. It just came out of nowhere and that was when everything clicked for me.

2 – What is some advice you would share with someone considering going on this journey? And what are some of the joys and challenges that you’ve experienced?

Well, I think the biggest advice to those trying to make a career switch to the Arts, do not quit their day jobs until they completely ready. Because the hardest thing to do is to develop your own voice and not follow trends. You need to have the confidence to work from your own voice and then you can follow trends, rather than have the trends dictate your voice and aesthetic.

I worked as an HR consultant and with startups for several years before making the jump to being a full-time artist. And the reason I did that was so that I can really hone what it was that I was doing creatively and that I did not have to rely on my creative work to pay my bills until I felt really confident about the work that I was creating.

3 – Could you tell me more about your published book and about your next one?

My first book was a technical block printing book focused on printing on fabric and creating your own designs. It’s called ‘Print, Pattern, Sew’ and it came out in 2018. And then my second book is called, ‘This long thread: women of color on craft, community, and connection’. It contains personal narratives, interviews, and oral histories of women of color in the US mainly and a little bit in Canada, who do textile, fiber arts, and crafts. So knitting, weaving, printing on fabric, sewing, quilting, and you are featured in the book too! I think you are the only one of two textile designers that I have in there. The book will be available to purchase in December 2021. At least it’s something to look forward to!

4 – You have been involved in creating the subgroup, #TextileArtistsForMVP as part of the Movement Voter Project, and collectively the group has raised $50,330 for this project. Please can you tell me more about how that came about? And more about the project?

I learned about MVP through my friend Chi Nguyen, who is a weaver and an amazing community organizer and lives in New York. We met because I interviewed her for my upcoming book. Chi had met with MVP and was really excited about mobilizing her community to raise funds for MVP that essentially distributes funds to grassroots progressive organizing groups in different states. So it’s not about supporting a particular political campaign but is particularly about supporting local organizations that do work around voting and voting rights.

She had the idea to organize textile artists, and so she asked me and weaver Erin Riley, and hobbyist knitter, Betty Farrell, who works full-time in healthcare. Each of us started reaching out to our networks and got people super excited about donating work, hosting an auction, or contributing a portion of their sales towards MVP. Chi originally had thought a good goal was $3,000- $5,000. I had thought that $20 to $30,000 was more accurate because we had a group of about 100 artists, to begin with. Within the first two to three weeks, we hit $30,000. And then it took on its own momentum and other artists started joining in. We ended up raising $50,330. So many of us feel kind of powerless right now and your vote does count. But also, if all you’re doing is voting, it’s really not enough.

I think it’s a very American thing to throw money at a project, right? But activating group energy within a community made a lot of people, including myself, feel like we really are doing something and putting ourselves into it. There is a certain amount of risk of going on social media to say that I am supporting this group. I also know a lot of folks who aren’t used to selling their work while being political online. I think this was a really good opportunity for a lot of artists to dip their toes into it and it was, quite honestly, for me a highlight of an otherwise really terrible year.

I think it allowed people to see just how powerful and how far their efforts can go because a lot of us could individually donate a certain amount of money quite easily. We could’ve each donated $100 and then we would easily have $20,000. But our collective effort pulls so many more people together and it raises so much more, not just money, but awareness. And it creates a conversation and a dialog.

5 – Since you’re a surface designer and a textile artist, I have to ask, what is your favorite seemakrish textile or wallcovering pattern?

You have this new wall covering that is gorgeous and different from everything else that you do in that it’s more detailed. It’s called Edgartown.

I love your work and the block print look, but this pattern is unique.