JENNIFER YORK, née JEN SWEARINGTON grew up in rural Indiana across the road from a horse stable and next to a 30-acre Christmas tree farm, drawing and coloring as long as she can remember. Mentored by her artist aunt Kelly Hoernig, Jen knew by the age of twelve that she wanted to become an artist. She studied fine art and art history, earning a BFA from Pratt Institute in 1997 and an MFA from the Savannah College of Art and Design in 2000, then spent one year as an Artist-in-Residence at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.

Early in her career, she focused on creating fine art: mixed media paintings, quilts, and small works on playing cards. When she started sewing original apparel pieces and printing her illustrations on them, they became her Jennythreads line of handmade apparel and accessories. Through this work, she has consistently made an independent, artistic living for over twenty years. In 2013, her comprehensive how-to book Printing on Fabric: Techniques with Screens, Stencils, Inks and Dyes was published by Lark Crafts.

Beginning spring of 2018, in search of inspiration and adventure, Jen traveled to more than a dozen countries for several month-long international artist residencies to develop new drawings, papercut artworks, pop-up books, and textile designs. Her main residencies were in Bulgaria, Mexico, Finland, and Greece. On these adventures she has filled sketchbooks with drawings as well as created “Homeward,” her ongoing series of carousel pop-up books and “Shadow house” architectural papercut sculptures.

In March 2020, Swearington relocated to the South Carolina coast and continues her creative journey among the tidal marshlands of James Island and Folly Beach, South Carolina. She was a 2021 Gibbes Museum Visiting Artist, with her solo exhibition “New Histories,” followed by two more solo exhibitions “Estuary Blues” at the Myrtle Beach Art Museum and “Constructed Realities” at the Museum of Art- DeLand (Florida), both in 2023.

When she's not in the studio, Jen is an avid trail runner and South Carolina Journeyman Beekeeper with Jennybees Apiary on James Island, SC. She reads a lot, snuggles with her tabby cats Thunder and Coco, y esta estudiando a hablar espanol.

Listen to Jen tell her story of craft fairs and paying off student loans on NPR's Markeplace Money.

Watch Jen’s interview with Fox News 24 about her art and artist residency at the Gibbes Museum.