Mottainai 12, ink on gampi torinoko paper hand-dyed with indigo, 11″ x 15″, 2016

This week we welcome Jeanne Heifetz. Heifetz is a native New Yorker who came to art via a circuitous route. Though she has no formal art training, her practice fits strongly into the lexicon of geometric abstraction.

Saki-Ori, Indigo, Logwood, Tussah silk hand-dyed with indigo, fustic, catechu, logwood., 63″ x 36″, 2007

Heifetz has two degrees in English, worked on the editorial side of several magazines, and published two nonfiction books, one on organic food and the other on the history of color names. 

Mottainai 57, ink on indigo Cave paper, 22.5″ x 17.5″, 2022

For many years she  was a weaver making functional work and selling at venues like the Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show and the Smithsonian Craft Show. Eventually she started using textile techniques with non-traditional materials like delicate metal and glass, and left the fine-craft realm for the fine-art world in 2011. 

Pre-Occupied 58, graphite on flax paper tinted with iron oxide, 21″ x 29″, 2021

“In 2021, I found myself returning to the imagery of mending and repair. After the shock of being suddenly widowed in 2018, the global losses of the pandemic, and the deepening fractures in American society, I was thinking constantly about how we rebuild lives that have been altered by forces beyond our control, and how we can find joy in the process.”

See more of the artist’s work on her website and Instagram page.

Nitin is a visual designer, gallery artist, and community arts activist. Past desk-oriented posts include: PBS, Digitas, K12, Inc., Fox News, The Wall Street Journal and Sesame Workshop International....

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