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Jeanne Simmons

Jeanne was born in coastal New Hampshire and grew up in a raucous household with four siblings. She graduated from the Maine College of Art in 1991 with a BFA in Sculpture. Upon graduating, she attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture.

In 1992, Jeanne moved to Chicago to attend graduate school at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She couldn’t cope with city life, so she drove west, eventually settling on Vashon Island, WA, where she later met her husband, Gunter Reimnitz, who is also a sculptor.

Jeanne and Gunter moved to Port Townsend, WA in 1999, where they raised their two beautiful kids. Jeanne worked as a youth services associate in local libraries for 11 years. She almost gave up on her lifelong dream of being an artist in 2017 when she decided to become a professional librarian instead, enrolling in graduate school to pursue her MLS. Just then her life’s passion—making things—bubbled up (see Grass Cocoon) and was irrepressible. Jeanne left her library job in 2019, quit library school, and jumped back into making art, with both feet, and her whole heart.

Jeanne’s work has been featured in numerous national and international publications. She is currently working with filmmaker Ward Serrill (The Bowmakers and The Heart of the Game) on a film about her work and process.

Jeanne Simmons in Kosmos

Rupture and Reweaving


This gallery explores the deep bond between humans and the natural world through wearable art made of organic materials—grass, lace, kelp, bark. Each piece emerges from grief, resilience, and reverence, revealing nature as healer, muse, and mirror of our inner lives. A meditation on beauty, loss, and belonging.


Published in Volume 25 Issue 4

Coming Soon

The Village Way

Practices for Belonging in a Fragmented World

For thousands of years, we lived according to the principles of village life. Then, around the 14th Century, our lives were reorganized by rulers around growth and accumulation – often at the cost of community, equity, and the living Earth. What would it mean to return to simplicity, and mutual care?

Join us for a 9-month inquiry into this question, exploring how we participate together in a time that calls us back to community, resilience, and shared life,

Join the Circle

watercolor of diverse group of people

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