Tiverton painter Jennifer Jones Rashleigh started painting pillows in 2001 after her husband Brendan's experiences near Ground Zero on Sept. 11, 2001, prompted a revaluation of everything she was doing with art.

Up until then, Rashleigh, now the owner of Cedian Painting at Tiverton Four Corners, was an art historian but had never painted for a living.

“Everything ended up fine for us, but I put my fifteenth-century documents in the basement,” Rashleigh, who is originally from Colorado but moved to Rhode Island to attend Brown University, said.

On Sept. 11, Brendan was in New York City on business and was supposed to stay at a Marriott World Trade Center Hotel, located within the World Trade Center complex, but had not checked in yet when the first planehit. He saw the buildings come down but was able to make it out of the city safely.

“I texted him. I gave him the address of every person we knew after the Pentagon got hit,” she recalled. “Then I found out that they were getting people out of the city.”

Brendan ended up getting to his sister's house in Westchester County, a suburb of New York City, and was back in Rhode Island within a few days.

The close call left her reflecting on what she would be doing in her future as her family continued to expand. It also made her think about truly chasing her passions.

“I had this moment thinking, ‘Am I doing the right thing?’ I just thought about if I didn’t try this.”

At the time she made the decision, she wasn’t sure what her art style would be, or even what she would be doing outside of painting. However, that changed on Mother’s Day 2002 when, alongside her son, she painted a pillow for her mother-in-law.

“My sister-in-law said ‘I want six of those,’” she recalled. “Then I started painting pillows.”

According to Rashleigh, pillows are a unique canvas and while she has since branched out into painting on other surfaces, she has never stopped painting on pillows.

Having grown up in the Rocky Mountains, Rashleigh was always an outdoors person, and it reflects in her work. Numerous paintings in her studio are inspired by the birds that fly through the Sakonnet clouds, as well as the trees and the waves of the ocean. According to Rashleigh, the area's natural beauty continues to inspire.

“I don’t think people are outside enough and able to celebrate and connect,” she said. “I’ll go to the beach and look at how water flows and look at the curve and the hydrodynamics of it. It’s like watching fire!”

The way she paints has changed over the past 25 years. When she first started, she hand-sewed all the pillows herself; however, she has since enlisted friends to help her with that process.

“One of them called me and said, ‘Don’t even cut the fabric. You don’t sew straight, you don’t cut straight, I have to recut everything,” she recalled her friend telling her. “They’re sewn much better now.”

Twenty-five years after 9/11, Rashleigh admitted that she took a risk switching her career path after her husband’s close call. However, now that she has her own studio and is doing what she loves, she has no regrets and has inner peace.

“It’s so easy. I’m just happy and happily surprised; I didn’t know if I could do it.”