Jill Kearney

Jill Kearney is a Co-Founder and Executive Director of ArtYard. The daughter of artists who founded The Contemporary Art Workshop, an art center housed in a rambling former dairy factory in Chicago, Ill., she is a producer of communal spectacles, curator, and former journalist and film executive.

As a child, Jill spent many formative summers in Provincetown, Mass., where local arts institutions anchored a diverse community of artists, writers, and fishermen. She graduated from Harvard with a degree in English and Creative Writing, worked in Hollywood as a creative executive at Francis Coppola’s Zoetrope Studios, served as West Coast editor of American Film and Premiere Magazine, and later ran the Tribeca Film Center-based offices of Los Angeles film producer Art Linson.

She married Stephen McDonnell, founder of Applegate Farms Organic and Natural Meats; moved to Bucks County, Penn.; worked briefly on the sausage line wearing a white cap; raised three strong, capable children; and sat on the board of Applegate Farms. Before launching ArtYard, she produced theater, dance, and literary events in a cavernous, unheated barn, where she developed a deep appreciation for art as a collaborative enterprise.