Johnny Swing

Johnny Swing (yes that’s his real name) is fascinated by curves and biomorphic forms. From a young age he even saw hard, structural metal as “fluid, or liquid” and had an ability to “whip it into shape.” Today, the 58-year-old artist is most known for his iconic coin furniture. The graceful and undulating Storm King bench, for example, made from welded nickels and stainless steel appears weightless, as if it might just take flight. It is also immensely comfortable. Though on a cold, early spring day, it is a tad chilly when you first sit down. Yet, the sensation, the smoothness, the absurdity of reclining on 2,000 (+/- 30) nickels is nothing short of thrilling.

Johnny Swing in his studio. Courtesy of the artist.

Swing’s studio is off a country road in Brookline, VT. He bought a slice of his friend’s farm and designed and built a two-level, multiple-room shop that overlooks the squash, corn and pumpkins below. Some of his projects, such as the 26 Santa Claus houses (40 x 50 x 35 feet) he helped build for DreamWorks, are big. Others, such as his coin bowls, are small. He stores an old Rambler, an original Model T and his collection of motorcycles and dirt bikes on the ground floor—an open space with no central pillar. He also has a collection of “long things”— an enormous oar, a measuring stick and a surfboard— that he bought cheaply at auction. On the day of my visit, the studio was mostly empty because the contents are all in his Shelburne Museum show, Johnny Swing: Design Sense, until June 2. They set it up exactly as it looked in his shop, including his collection of anvils.

Swing has been making coin furniture since 1993. First, he made a chair out of pennies, cast in the style of Harry Bertoia’s Diamond Chair. Next was a nickel couch that “looked like a dolphin out of the water…it was glisteningly beautiful,” he says. Since then, he has made a Quarter Couch (made with over 1500 quarters) and many pieces from welded JFK half-dollars and stainless steel including All the King’s Men, Nest and Fortune Cookie. Nickels are his favorite coin to work with: “They weld the best, they look great.” Half dollars cover the most surface and are “tight and detailed.” He’s even ventured into paper currency with pillows, rugs and a teddy bear made from stitched $1 dollar bills (with a zipper so “if you’re really well off, [you can] stuff it with your bills”). Anne Murphy, his seamstress, is also his barber and was assistant to Soo Sunny Park.

Swing grew up in Salisbury, CT. His mother was a painter and his father the executive vice president and acting president of the Council on Foreign Relations. He went to Skidmore College, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and ended up in the East Village. He moved to Vermont in 1995.

While living in New York, Swing started to make furniture from found objects. When friends saw one of his earlier works, the Tack Chair (1987), made from oversized steel tacks, they wanted one. But the problem with found objects is they’re found. He realized with the penny chair that not only are pennies worth something, but no one wants them. “I always root for the underdog,” he says. “Pennies are like the underdog. They are little sculptures themselves. It was a win-win.” When he moved on to nickels (for their size and “flowing, reflective look”) he worried he was “abandoning [his] proletarian ethic.” And for the record, “it is not illegal” to make furniture out of coins.

Murmuration bench in welded nickels and stainless steel. Designed by Johnny Swing, USA, 2012. Number 5 from an edition of 10 (+1 AP). [NFS] 132 x 55 x 32.5″ (335.5 x 139.7 x 82.6 cm). Shot
on location of downstairs lobby of then Four Seasons Restaurant. Courtesy of the artist.

It’s hard to imagine that Swing ever sleeps. He has his studio where he makes the coin furniture, sculptures and other projects. (He wore a Fitbit one day and registered close to 15,000 steps by lunchtime without even leaving the building.) He maintains his cow, sheep and chicken farm, which includes the very oddlooking Turken, or Naked Neck chicken. He makes maple syrup. He also designed and constructed the tables chairs and barstools and came up with the name for the Fat Crow, a restaurant in Newfane, VT, that opened in September. Guests waiting to be seated get to recline on the 150-pound Murmuration, made of about 9,000 (+/-500) nickels and welded steel, an 11½-foot-long lounger inspired by the marvel of hundreds, if not thousands, of birds flying as a graceful, coordinated unit.

Johnny Swing
johnnyswing.com
Johnny Swing: Design Sense
Shelburne Museum, Shelburne, VT
shelburnemuseum.org
Through June 2, 2019

Sarah Baker is editor in chief of Art New England.