This exhibition is drawn from and expands upon the Craft in America survey exhibition, Building the Essentials: Ferne Jacobs, April 2, 2022 –June 18, 2022. The Claremont Lewis Museum of Art’s 2023 exhibition will present a comprehensive selection from Ferne Jacobs’ 50 years of artmaking.

Jacobs began her work in fiber at the Claremont Graduate University (CGU) in the 1970s. This exhibition is an effort to deepen our knowledge and appreciation of her art by bringing it back to Claremont in the company of works by some of the artists who have influenced her, and a selection of objects she has collected that give insight into her creative vision. It is our hope that the exhibition and its accompanying public programs will serve not only to inform and delight our visitors but also to inspire the next generation of artists studying and working in Claremont.

The exhibition will delve deep into Jacobs’s private world by featuring works by artists she is inspired by and collects. The exhibition will include Vija Celmins’s delicate spider web prints; “Chevak” dolls made by Alaskan artist Rosalie Panyak; paintings and porcelain bowls by abstract artist Patsy Krebs, who also earned her MFA from CGU; watercolors and intimate sculptures by California artist Dominic Di Mare; and art by American fiber artist Lenore Tawney along with personal items and correspondence from their long friendship. Jacob’s Echo Park home is a place of solace and inspiration, a space that she continually curates, containing such objects as carefully arranged rocks, shells, fetishes, Plains Indian and Inuit dolls, Native American baskets, and ceramic bowls by Toshiko Takaezu. Her artistic sensibility permeates every wall, corner and shelf, while the objects with which she surrounds herself enlarge our sense of her artistic inspiration and vision.

Printed copies of the catalog published by Craft in America are available on Blurb for $24.