Shawn Jennings from Assembly Required

Shawn Jennings

Maker: Episode 3

Shawn is a quirky Steampunk-inspired builder. He may be an oddball, but his passion and delight in his work always lights up a room. Sometimes mistaken for a magician, Shawn often wears authentic Victorian garb and approaches his work with love and reverence for its historical significance. Following in his father’s footsteps, Shawn has built and rebuilt classic cars for 20 years. His career as a designer began when he started to gift his customers with upcycled functional art made from old car parts. When it comes to building cars and his mechanical/functional art pieces, Shawn derives his inspiration from surrealist artists like M C Escher, Salvador Dali, and Mcgree.

One of Shawn’s great passion projects is his fascination with Automatons. These thousand-year-old mechanical toys mimic human functions with the use of gears/pulleys, weights and clockwork. Shawn is also an overall handyman. Many friends often drop off small engines for him to tinker with and repair. He always has a smile on his face and approaches everything he makes and fixes as a problem solver. When faced with obstacles in his workshop, he firmly believes that “there’s always another way”. This designer is a big fish in a small pond. Shawn dreams of sharing his passion and mechanical concepts with a broader audience and bringing delight and joy to more folks.