Reviews and Articles
Tracy Bennett, the New York Times Wordle Editor says “I am fascinated by these mixed media interpretations of Wordle answers. We humans create meaning and find beauty in seemingly random sequences that form intriguing patterns. Artists connect images, gestures, colors, and by doing so connect to others, communicating a truth. I am thrilled that there's an artist like Jeanne Williamson Ostroff making Wordles (and more!) into such compelling art.”
“Wordle”, Storefront Art Projects, Watertown, MA, January 2025
… and Jeanne Williamson Ostroff’s 54 Scars, 54 Donors shows a visual interpretation of the scars of living kidney donors, said PEG Center Executive Director Paula Estey. “The power of caring, resiliency and hope shine through the whole exhibition.”
“PEG Center highlights 'Heroes Among Us'“, CAPSULE PREVIEWS: November/December 2023 – Artscope Magazine
"... Jeanne Williamson uses the grid pattern from temporary plastic construction fences as an abstract construct and as a stand-in for other objects like lace, windows and clothing. In “(Fence) Shirts and (Hot) Flashes #1,” from the artist’s first autobiographical series, Williamson’s monoprinted grid wraps around a panel roughly the proportions of a shirtfront. The grid folds over itself at the top edge of the panel to reveal a blushing triangle of décolleté, referencing the sensation a woman feels when experiencing a hot flash."
Renewal: Mother Brook Arts Flirts with a New Direction, by Meredith Cutler, artscope magazine, March/April 2014
"Jeanne Williamson’s The Fence as Lace #4 is the largest work in the show. Well over eight feet long and made of stiffened fabric, it asks us to see the handmade in an entirely different scale. A second Williamson work wraps around a column, flatness assuming dimension and totemic stature. There’s a symmetry between Williamson’s wrapped column and Joe Carpineto’s seven-foot columnar frame, Piecework, which evokes the New England weaving mills that helped build the economy of New England."
Cottoning to a Second Anniversary Theme, by Joanne Mattera, reviewing the Cotton show at Fountain Street Fine Art, Framingham, MA, December 2012.
"Orange plastic net construction fencing provides inspiration for Williamson’s artworks at the college’s Hunt-Cavanaugh Gallery. She mixes hand-painting, monoprinting, and block printing atop quilted fabric in variations of the same theme: grids with dots, ovals, and dotted squares that resemble dice. The best piece is Orange Construction Fence Series #32/71 (2009), which features an orange grid that shifts in parts to gray. The middle is an open lattice that appears ripped like the tears that appear so frequently in orange construction fencing. Most of Williamson’s pieces are solid tapestries that follow a pretty strict grid, which feels repetitious across the 24 works here. But this one grabs you with the stitched textures; its idiosyncratic pattern, based on real-world wear and tear, plus the contrast between industrial netting and Williamson’s fine quilting."
Greg Cook, Gang of four: New work at 5 Traverse and Providence College, in The Providence Phoenix, November 3, 2009, reviewing Off the Fence (solo show), at the Hunt Cavanagh Gallery, Providence College, Providence, RI. The review was also mentioned on his blog, Eric Sung, Jeanne Williamson.
"Williamson has used discipline as a framework for discovery. By restricting her palette and format, she is free to try combinations of techniques and design until she feels she has exhausted the possibilities for artists growth."
Catherine Weller, Jeanne Williamson and Katherine Porter , Fiberarts Magazine, November/December 2006
"... in her internationally exhibited Orange Construction Fence Series, Williamson combines printmaking, painting, and quilting to create abstract stitched monoprints - single prints on sewn fabric - that upend conventional notions of this most traditional American craft."
Terry House, Jeanne Williamson, The Middlesex Beat, October 2006
"Jeanne Williamson's abstract-expressionistic Orange Construction Fence Series #29 is one of the most esthetically mature pieces. Because of its use of space, shape, color and line, jurors named it best of show."
Kaizaad Kotwal, Review: Eye of the Needle, The Columbus Dispatch, Columbus, OH, July 31, 2005, reviewing Quilt National 2005
"While Jeanne Williamson's work grows out of traditional craft, this Natick artist is most interested in contemporary abstraction. She might produce quilts which are 100% cotton, machine appliqued and quilted, but they are also monoprinted and handstamped, a collage which exploits fabric for its ability to provide a kind of high texture or bas-relief. Her Construction Fence Series asks the viewer to make sense of a repeating grid, interspersed with the insistent shape of twisting vine and the spiky grass, which pokes through the fence at a building site. The result is art for the serious collector, as visually challenging as any painting on the market."
Katherine French, Considering the Essential, The Middlesex Beat, February 2005, reviewing The Essential Substance: Fiber Exhibition, The Gallery at Mount Ida College, Newton, MA