Jacobs plays with duality in her work in terms of textures, contrast of color, interior and exterior, solids and voids. Each piece begins with an idea, a dream, a story, or a picture in Jacobs’ mind, but it grows and takes on its own form over the months in which she shapes the artwork. Her acute sense of color melded with her poetic and intuitive approach are characteristic traits. Reinventing and advancing traditional techniques used for basketry, and inventing countless other methods along the way, Jacobs has generated an entirely fresh format for sculptural art. Technically, Jacobs is recognized for her mastery of material and process. Unlike the warp-restrictions of twining and other weaving processes, coiling offered unlimited potential for expansion and it allowed her to create hard forms. From the moment that she learned to coil, she found a channel for expression that has become a lifelong career, extending beyond five decades thus far. This gathering of her work reflects Jacobs’ overall artistic evolution and highlights her unrelenting search for meaning in form, color, and process.While studying weaving around 1966 with artists Arline Fisch, Joan Austin, Mary Jane Leland, and Olga de Amaral, among others, Jacobs sought to learn other fiber techniques. She is among the leading artists who have shaped the national fiber movement that has flourished in California over the decades. Jacobs has lived and practiced in Echo Park for most of her life, yet she has rarely exhibited here in Los Angeles. Jacobs’ intimate drawings and collage diaries, which have never been publicly displayed before now, provide an additional lens into her vision, inspiration, and philosophical perspective. This exhibition is the first to survey more than fifty years of Jacobs’ pivotal and timeless work through the present. Transforming materials and pushing boundaries, she builds solid structures with coiled, twined, and knotted thread. She has pioneered ways to create a new category of sculpture. Since the 1960s, Ferne Jacobs has been at the forefront of the revolution in fiber art.

The Craft in America Center is pleased to present the first ever retrospective of Los Angeles artist Ferne Jacobs.

Craft building