Jessie Mordine Young

Jessie Mordine Young (b. England, 1993) is a Brooklyn-based artist who researches, writes about, curates, makes and teaches textile art. She believes that textiles can be carriers of empathy, memory, and lived experience and that they are evidence of humanity. This sentiment is at the root of her art practice. In one of her more recent bodies of work, she embarked on a project of creating daily artworks, which she calls “woven drawings” or “thread sketches.” These pieces directly connect to her experiences in nature, where color and texture become tangible references to sites, sounds, and forms she finds when immersed in the landscape. Jessie is also enamored by the alchemy of the dye vat; she often paints her yarn and woven fabrics through a natural dye process and by thoughtfully sourcing plant matter.

She earned her BFA in Fiber and Material Studies and Art History from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) and an MA in Material Culture, Design History and Object Study from the Bard Graduate Center in NYC. She is a part-time faculty at Parsons School of Design. Through extensively researching various craft histories in her academic and former curatorial practice, she has developed an appreciation for slow, thoughtful acts of making as an act of autonomy.