Skip to content
Site Tools
Increase font size Decrease font size Default font size
YOU are here: Home arrow Arts & Culturearrow Arts & Culturearrow Fire Play
Fire Play PDF Print E-mail
Written by staff writer   
Saturday, 03 March 2007

Side Story
League of NH Craftsmen

The League of New Hampshire Craftsmen, founded in 1932, is committed by its mission statement to “encourage, nurture and promote the creation, use and preservation of fine craft through the inspiration and education of artists and the broader community.”  Juried craftsmen present and sell their creations at 7 retail galleries throughout the state, at the 9-day Annual Craftsmen’s Fair that starts the first Saturday of every August and at Gallery 205 on its website.
www.nhcrafts.org
Read More >>

Glass Blowing, Philp Jacobs, Fire Play
Philip Jacobs Blowing Glass

The Risk Appeal

An artist’s decision to make his living from his art is always risky, but for glassblower Philip Jacobs, risk is part of the appeal.  After all, working with molten materials and flame at temperatures well above 2000˚ is physically dangerous.  But playing with fire has taught Jacobs to transform risk into faith, just as fire transforms the most basic of elements–sand, limestone, soda ash and potash–into the fiery splendor of his glass.
    In his art, Jacobs strives to reflect both the beauty and complexity of the natural world, saying, “My work demonstrates the history and tradition of the vessel while suggesting the surface as a canvas for expression….  I take inspiration from the mountains, oceans and sky and manifest my appreciation into glass with harmonious earth tones.”

Philip Jacobs, League of New Hampshire Craftsmen
Philip Jacobs at Work

    After a journey of self-discovery that included travel and work as a bike messenger in his native Washington, D.C., Jacobs was hypnotized by glassblowing at the age of 25 when he attended a course at the renowned Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Deer Isle, Maine.  “It was the fire itself I loved,” Philip explains.  “It was entrancing.”
    Jacobs took his newfound fascination for glassblowing, and, he admits, his intrigue with its danger to the School for American Craft in Rochester, NY where he earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts and met his future wife, Karissa, a ceramics major.
    Since Karissa grew up in Lovell, ME, the couple often spent their summers hiking and camping in the nearby White Mountains.  When they graduated from the School of American Craft in 2000, they headed to North Conway, NH, searching for a site for their new studio-gallery.  By July they had found it in a rundown building right in the heart of the Village.
    The transformation of the building to a studio-gallery demanded large investments of sweat and cash.  “We poured everything we had into the place over the next five months,” Jacobs recalls.  “We completely gutted the interior and rebuilt everything from the ground up all by ourselves.”  Earth & Fire Studio Gallery opened just before Christmas of 2000, featuring a well-lit gallery and open workspace where visitors watched the creation of glass and ceramic art.
    Earth & Fire Studio Gallery on Seavey Street featured the glasswork of Jacobs and the functional ceramics and sculpture of his wife and partner, Karissa Masse Jacobs.  The decorative elements of her dishes and teapots are considered and balanced, accentuating the forms without distracting from them.  Her sculptures feature the female form portrayed in clay, enhancing the connection between earth and the fertility inherent in the figures.  She has designed earthenware and glazing techniques to give her sculptures a timeless quality and confides that she likes to imagine her work being found and interpreted as artifacts in the future.
Karissa Jacobs, Maine
Karissa at Work in Her Studio
    The rich history of art and craft in the Mount Washington Valley was at least part of what drew the Jacobs to North Conway.  “One of the first art colonies in the country flourished here in the 1800s,” Jacobs recounts, “and in the 1960s and ‘70s there were all kinds of fine craft artists with places in North Conway Village.”
    The Jacobs’ dedication to that tradition of fine craft was recognized last summer when The League of New Hampshire Craftsman Shop in town, first opened in the 1970s, came up for sale.  Needing a larger space, the Jacobs offered a figure that they could afford in the open bidding but were outbid by others.  In a tribute to Philip and Karissa’s artistry, the League rejected higher bids and accepted the Jacobs’, saying they wanted to support the League members and the next generation of craftsmen.  “It was them living up to their mission statement, “ explains Jacobs.  “They could have gone for the money, but instead, they went for the statement and morals.”
    The fall has been spent tying up the business details of the transaction and a month-long rehabilitation and renovation of the building.  Philip’s 5000-pound glass furnace and Karissa’s ceramics kiln have been moved and set up in the studio gallery; Philip’s space is on the first floor and Karissa’s is in the basement.  When the store opens in December–as the first artist-owned Shop in the League’s 74-year history, there will be 2 signs over the door, League of New Hampshire Craftsmen and Earth & Fire.  Patrons will still be able to watch the Jacobs at work, as at the original Earth & Fire gallery, and peruse the “best of the best” craftsmen of the League as well.
    
Image
Beautiful Hand Crafted Finished Product
Philip Jacobs reflects that during his 6 years in North Conway, new and younger artists and craftspeople have moved into the Valley, perhaps even drawn by the presence of Earth & Fire.  Like him, they’re wooed by the twin sirens of artistry and risk. They’re playing with fire.  
2526 White Mountain Hwy,
N. Conway, NH, 603.356.8698,
www.earthandfirestudio.net
Last Updated ( Wednesday, 04 April 2007 )
 
< Prev
[ Back ]
Advertisement

Login Form
Lost Password?
No account yet? Register