WILLIAM T. STEWART
William was a professional calligrapher and artist who worked at the intersection of calligraphy and fine art, combining typography, calligraphy, letterform design, graphic art, book design, postage stamp design, postal art and collage.
William arrived in San Francisco in the late 1970s, one of the most formative periods in the evolution of the queer counterculture during the first decades of gay liberation. He played an active and creative role in the community with the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, The Radical Faeries and later with The AIDS Memorial Quilt and as a volunteer at Shanti Project.
In his later years William sought to live in a community that centered queer spirituality and ecological sensitivity. In 2014 that dream project was realized as Groundswell, a rural community land project and retreat center in the Mendocino woodlands. Groundswell has inspired thousands of queer people to connect more deeply with the land, queer community, and themselves.
These are some of the subjects that engaged William’s attention in the course of a lifetime of intellectual, emotional, and spiritual engagement.
This site is dedicated to the archive of his life, art, writing, community and legacy.
“Quillemot was originally guillemot, a small seabird of the auk family, and by etymology a ‘little William.’ But then g became Q and the name became a whole lot queerer, ceasing to be an auk and acquiring a calligraphic fluorish uniquely its own. It’s pleasantly quirky, well-established as its creator’s electronic identity, and not previously claimed as a domain name, so it seemed like a good choice in a seriously overcrowded field.”
— William Stewart, September 2021