Ferne Jacobs Catalog

“When I start it’s a color, a size, and I see a shape… I just start
playing with the line and then I make a connection…and then
suddenly I am in that piece. And we are having a relationship.
I never know what it’s going to look like until it gets done.”
Ferne Jacobs has been at the forefront of the revolution in
fiber art since the 1960s. She has pioneered the formation
of a new category of sculpture. Transforming materials and
pushing boundaries, she builds solid structures with coiled,
twined, and knotted thread. This exhibition is the first to
survey more than fifty years of Jacobs’ pivotal and timeless
artwork from 1966 through the present.
Jacobs has lived and practiced in Echo Park for most of
her life, yet she has rarely exhibited in Los Angeles. As
such, this exhibition is a homecoming. Like countless other
artists working in Southern California during this era and
prior to recent shifts in the art world, most of her work
migrated to galleries, collections, and museums in New
York, the East Coast, and other parts of the country. She is
among the leading artists who have shaped the national
fiber movement that has flourished in California over many
decades, having national and international influence. This
gathering of work reflects Jacobs’ overall artistic evolution
and highlights her unrelenting search for meaning in form,
color, and process.
Early on in her career, Jacobs studied at Art Center College
of Design and she took painting at Pratt Institute, but the
sensory aspects of fiber, including smell and touch, were
what really stoked her interest. After a first weaving class
at Barnsdall Art Park in the early 1960s, she built a selfmade
fiber education by seeking out classes and personally
connecting with leading artists and teachers. In 1965, she
took a workshop in San Diego with Arline Fisch, whom she
credits with truly teaching her to weave expressively.
CONNECTED CELLS, BREATHING FORMS 9