jennythreads by jen swearington
my creative process
or
how stories get into stitches...
I visited my family in Indiana. My parents and I went to Chicago for the day, taking a boat tour out of Navy Pier. Here is a photo I took of the big ferris wheel there.
Growing up, one of the greatest events I looked forward to was the Lake County fair in August. I am still fascinated with carnival rides.
Trying to figure out the structure of the ferris wheel, I realized the passenger carriages were the least interesting component to draw.
What else?
I was away from home for ten weeks, my husband and I had moved 3 times in the last year, I was having far-off adventures down south and looking forward to getting back home to cuddle my cats and paint my living room...
The ferris wheel was coming along after several attempts, but that wasn't the whole deal- I still don't know why an elephant seemed appropriate. To show a monumental scale? It travels with its trunk? Hell, it just was, I don't know. I drew it one way, then the other. Then I drew it on the quilt.
The quilt was just about done but the format reminded me of a postcard... it needed written thoughts. What to write? I had a deadline of just a couple of hours away. What is that elephant doing in there? Somehow I wrote the first things that came to mind about the following theme:
My dad is from Tennessee and moved north to Indiana for work. He settled there and started a family. I hated the cold and moved south " in search of heat and mystique," and found myelf back in Savannah for the summer, looking, drawing, thinking. Then I was home in Asheville in my studio, eventually putting it all together...
North and South, 2006, private collection, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Oh, so here's how I make a quilt:
I piece together old bedsheets to form a basic background composition, stretch it like a painting, and then paint around all the patterned areas using gesso, a white painter's primer. I draw and paint using charcoal, ink, thread, and shellac, which lends the amber tones and protects and seals in all the imagery. I work on the composition in man sessions, allowing time to study it and contemplate what to do next. This process sometimes take weeks, sometimes just a few very intense days.
Once I am satisfied with the drawing, I take the painted fabric off the frame, layer it with batting and backing fabric, and machine-quilt all the layers together.This takes several hours and wrecks my neck and shoulders as I wrestle with the thing to manuever it in my sewing machine. Then I trim the quilt square and bind the edges with cloth strips, handstitching the binding to the quilt back. I devised a hanging system that floats the quilt about two inches from the wall, hangs on a nail, and rolls up for shipping.
how the quilts relate to the silk wearables
my Savannah beach cruiser bicycle along with road barriers, pick up trucks & 1:00 AM sleepless writings on a charmeuse scarf
a Christmas-mart bag I found on the sidewalk in Salzburg, Austria, an airplane sketch (used in Season of the Shark), & the patterns from the inside lid of my aunt Janice's Spirograph set on a silk jacket
a bear ironing from a 1904 postcard (used in Bear and for Bear), my coffeemaker (used in Lake County), more writing & text, & the "Zipper" carnival ride on an silk organza wrap
shoes, beds, irons, zipperfeet, & first aid illustrations layered on silk ties
Oh, yes, and here's how I make Jennythreads clothing. I construct each silk wearable from white silk off the bolt, and then dye it to place the pattern on the garment and the figure. Besides screen printing my drawings and found images, I also incorporate Japanese shibori dyeing in both additive and subtractive dyeing processes. I use the scraps from the clothing to collage my scarves together through artistic intuition, letting go of color theories and formulas to make unexpected, refreshing arrangements of color, pattern and texture.
While my silk clothing pieces are highly individual, they are also practical. All items are preshrunk, dye-set, hand-washable, and can be worn casual or dressed up. I have so much fun wearing and layering my pieces with a vintage piece or over a cheap tee from target. These clothes are meant to be lived in, as they meant to exist in a realm between trendy and timeless; they are fun and fresh year after year. I am proud to make really fun, high-quality, easy wearable works of art.
thank you so much for your interest in my work!
After a while, the ferris wheel and the elephant sketched for North and South got burned onto silk screens to print many of the patterns onto my silk wearables. Here they are on a nimus wrap along with another sketch of a futuristic squirt gun. Adding these images to the clothing and accessories are probably my favorite part of what I do. It makes my clothing even more unique and rich. My silk wearables aren't just versatile and stylish, there are stories layered among the stitches.
Here are some more examples of sketches and textures that got recycled onto Jennythreads silk clothing and accessories:
