Interviewing Ferne Jacobs

Today, we’re sharing our chat with Fiber Artist Ferne Jacobs! On Tuesday, we’ll be back to our regular Museum & Gallery updates.

At 82 years old, Ferne Jacobs spends at least 4 hours each night weaving — more precisely twining and coiling. Through her unwavering practice, flowing, organic forms of vibrant hues emerge, each work capturing a sense of movement. “My only goal, my only hope, is that it has breath — that it feels alive,” Jacobs explains of her sculptures.

Over the years, this accomplished artist’s works have been featured in exhibits at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Art and Design, the De Young Museum, and more. Most recently, she was a finalist for the 2024 Loewe Craft Prize.

We were fortunate enough to chat with the Los Angeles-based artist about her weaving process and deep commitment to the craft.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Where did the pursuit of art begin for you?

How it started — oh God — it's so long ago now. You know what, in junior high, we went to see a Van Gogh exhibit, and it really had such a powerful effect on me. I don't know if that was the first time I ever saw art, but I started thinking that it’s something I want to do. I want to be in that world.

How did textiles become your medium of choice?

I mean, nothing was planned. Let's put it that way. Do you know Los Angeles at all? Where are you?

I'm in New York. I don't know LA well.

Okay. Melrose has become quite a street. It wasn't back then, but somehow I was walking on Melrose and there was a weaving in a window. It was a person's studio, and the door was open. I was with either my husband or a friend, and we walked in, and there were looms and weavings. I just thought, “Wow, what is this?”

Later on, I started taking a painting class. Somebody told me about a good painting teacher and I noticed that they also taught weaving. So I took a painting class and a weaving class, and very quickly, I fell in love with weaving. I really loved the texture of the thread.

You never looked back. Tell me about the techniques you use.

You can twine. Twining is a weaving technique, but you can do it in your lap. So it creates a softer fabric. Coiling is hard, and you can't change it. Twining is softer. I wanted that contrast between something hard and something soft at one point. That’s how it developed.

Between coiling and twining, is there a form that speaks to you more? Or is it always a back and forth?

Twining doesn't create a form. You can smash twining. So I always use coiling to make the shape. And then I've added twining as kind of a soft element. Some pieces have more twining, but it's never been all twined.

It sounds incredibly complex.

It's very complex. They're really hard to make. And I think I'm feeling it as I age. I never thought about it when I was younger, but now I'm feeling how hard it is, and I'm seeing what I did all those years, you know, but I didn't really acknowledge the work that went into them.

Hard you mean in a physical way or also in the artistic process?

Both. There's a lot of pulling. I have to pull every time I wrap. Coiling is a wrapping technique, so I wrap and I pull and I wrap and I pull, and I just do it automatically. There's this constant physicality to it. It's not painful, but I can feel the exercising that I do.

What is your artistic process to this day? Do you still find yourself working on pieces daily despite the physical demands?

I still work six days a week. I work at night. No matter what I do during the day, there's a certain time I just begin working. But fewer hours — I used to work afternoons and nights, now I just work nights. I work at least four hours.

Wow. Four hours a day. That's incredible.

At least, yeah — sometimes eight, sometimes ten hours — but now, no, I wouldn't try doing that anymore.

And you find that the motivation is still there every day?

You know, the other night I had to do things until midnight and I could have gone to bed. I said, “Why don't you go to bed? Don't work today.”

I had to, I had to do it. I had to get that in.

Looking into some of your works — Origins, which was featured at the Loewe Craft Prize, and then your piece Interior Passages — they have this very feminine form. Do you aim for forms that have a connection to nature, or do you find that certain forms emerge out of the medium?

I don't think about the medium. It comes from something in me and something about the process as I'm working. I have this image of a dancer, you know, that just keeps changing shape and then suddenly it stops. But there's limits to what you can do with the techniques I use. At some point, the form stops.

As I'm finishing a piece, I kind of start relating to the next one. I start with a line, and I just start playing with it. And it's this incredibly intimate relationship that I have with the piece I'm working on. It develops from watching the piece carefully, and it's a conversation: “How to build it up here, how to build it up there.” And I just need to know the next step. I start relating to the piece when it's done — “What is this to me? What do I see here?”

I think people should come away with what they come away with. I want people to have a personal reaction.

Do you like to hear what those reactions are?

I do. Like when you said they're feminine, I said, “Oh yeah.” And I agree. Sometimes they say something that I'm going, “Uh, really?” And then that expands my knowledge of it. You know?

It’s a perception of that individual and their world, perhaps.

My only goal, my only hope, is that it has breath — that it feels alive. If it looks dead to me, that's the killer. You know, if it starts looking dead, if I know too much about a piece, I throw it off.

How have you felt things have changed for you over the years in doing the craft?

I think the process is the same. Every one of my pieces is a singular piece. That’s what keeps me engaged. Sometimes when I'm working on a piece, I want to go back to an old piece to help me figure out something. I can't. I don't remember how I figured it out the last time. I have to figure it out totally new.

It's always an evolution. That's wonderful. I mean, it's as engaging as something can get.

It is, really. Everything's present. It's all in the presence.

You've had so many years in the art world — are there any major learnings you'd want to share with a younger artist?

You know, to have a passion for what you do — it's everything. It's boring, it's exciting, it's painful, I feel like I'm gonna die, I feel like I'm gonna live. I mean, I hope that they have that connection. If you make that kind of connection to your work, then it carries you. It just carries you through the good times, the bad times.

It's not easy. It's not. Maybe knowing that it's going to be difficult, and there are times when you maybe don't want to do it, but you do it anyway. You just do it. Because it's difficult. It's your life, you know.