Independent Education with Metalsmith Margaret Jacobs

I Like Your Work: Conversations with Artists

Margaret Jacobs, Akwesasne Mohawk, is an artist, educator and independent curator. A metalsmith who creates fabricated steel sculpture and powdercoated, one-of-a-kind jewelry, her work reflects on kinship to the natural world referencing cultural, historical and personal narratives while exploring the lines of contemporary craft and fine art objects.

Overall, her life has been greatly influenced by rural living and her interest in object making stems from her youth in Northern New York and a constant respect for creating, repairing, refinishing and re-making objects that were vital to survival. Her artistic process involves steel fabrication techniques that intermingle traditional blacksmithing tools and techniques--primarily forging and hot forming with a forge--with more present day metalworking fabrication processes. This is a unique process that makes the steel feel alive and organic.

Jacobs is a 2024 Teaching Artist Cohort and Rural and Traditional Fellowship recipient; a 2024 Native Arts Fellowship through the NMAI Smithsonian; a 2023 Independent Curators International (ICI) Curatorial Research Fellow and a 2019 recipient of the Artist in Business Leadership Award through the First Peoples Fund. She has participated in several artist residencies including at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Sante Fe, NM and Franconia Sculpture Park in Shafer, MN. Recent exhibitions include solo-shows at the Boise Art Museum in Idaho; Burlington City Arts in Vermont; and Ma’s House in Southampton, NY.

Jacobs attended Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH where she graduated with high honors for her thesis work and received the Perspectives on Design (POD) award.

LINKS:

margaretjacobs.com @margaretofsteel Artist Shout Out: Society of Inclusive Blacksmiths, https://www.inclusiveblacksmiths.com/ @inclusive_blacksmiths

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