I recall the first time I took a magnifying glass outside in the sun, carefully focusing the light of a celestial body almost 100 million miles away into an intense dot that quickly and neatly melted the arm off a plastic army man. The unseemliness of concentrated power was fascinating to my young mind, and I was only peripherally aware of enacting the cliché of the hubristic child-god who gleefully destroys their toys. Instead, it was the raw “cool factor” of wielding in my hands a magic wand instead of a scientific instrument, diving head first into the gap between theory and practice.
My current work once again resides in this gap, fidgeting comfortably between wonder and knowing. It is object-based and sensual; playing hide-and-go-seek with the themes of suburban aesthetics, craftsmanship, intimacy and consumption. My studio is a fluid environment with multiple projects across multiple platforms happening simultaneously. Embracing the archetypal mantle of the 'mad-scientist,' I am enamored with a material that has insinuated itself into every facet of our lives, from museums to bathrooms, space shuttles to Kim-chi jars.
Bio
Jacob learned the discipline of craft while double majoring at Alfred University in Art and Philosophy. He scrambled his mind tracing the trajectories of contemporary European design as a Fulbright Scholar to the Netherlands, and set off firecrackers at the SAIC while getting his MFA in Ceramics. He has exhibited, taught, and participated in artist residences all over the world, promulgating the view of an expanded field of ceramics that encompasses a 21st century conception of a materially engaged maker not beholden to a single medium.
