“Exploration leads to inspiration.”
Jennifer York has long been known in the art world as Jen Swearington. In November 2022, she married Sam York and opted to take his sweetly short last name. She still goes by Jen.
Jen is a lifelong artist and curious explorer. She grew up in rural Indiana, earned a BFA in Sculpture with Art History minor from Pratt Institute and an MFA in Fibers from Savannah College of Art and Design. In 2003, she founded Jennythreads Studio in Asheville, NC, producing fine handmade apparel for stylish women, crafting an independent, creative living for 19 years.
In 2018-19 Jen traveled to a dozen countries for four monthlong international art residencies, where she filled sketchbooks with observational drawings and created a series of collapsible carousel pop-up book sculptures that fit in her carry-on suitcase.
In March 2020, Jen relocated to Charleston, SC and currently lives among the tidal marshlands near Folly Beach. As an avid runner during the COVID-19 Pandemic, Jen found old suitcases and mirrors on the side of the road and saw them as creative vessels in which to build wondrous new scenes of intricate cut paper, a natural development from the carousel book structures. She continued to develop this body of work as a 2021 Gibbes Museum of Art Visiting Artist.
After 19 years in the studio production business, Jen retired from Jennythreads and has shifted her creative focus to fine art full-time. Her first museum-hosted solo show, “New Histories” ran at the Gibbes Museum of Art from October to December 2021. In 2022, her large tyvek papercut “Carolopolis” was exhibited and sold at ARTFIELDS in Lake City, SC. She successfully fabricated “Sky Chapel” in lasercut steel from her papercut maquette for the National Sculpture Exhibition and Competition at Riverside Park in North Charleston, SC. Her latest major solo show, “Estuary Blues” is on exhibit at the Burroughs-Chapin Art Museum in Myrtle Beach, SC from January 19 to April 16, 2023.