Jake Jacobson was born in Iola, Kansas in 1949. When he was eight years old his family moved to El Dorado, Kansas. He attended El Dorado schools where his guidance counselor discouraged him from attending college. However, influenced by his junior high and senior high art teachers Marcia Cunningham and Gene M. Stanley he attended Butler County Community Junior College in El Dorado where he studied art under Robert Chism and Lynn Havel. He continued his education and earned a Bachelor of Arts (1973), Master of Arts in sculpture (1974), and the terminal degree in studio arts, a Master of Fine Arts degree in ceramics in 1982 – all from Fort Hays State College, now Fort Hays State University. All of the professors at Hays were influential in establishing a culture of learning and experimentation in art but of particular importance were Jim Hinkhouse, Darrell McGinnis, Joel Moss, and Olli Valanne.
He taught art and ceramics at Hutchinson, Kansas High School for nine years. In 1982 he taught for one year on a temporary appointment at Kearney State College, now University of Nebraska at Kearney. He then taught at Midland Lutheran College in Fremont, Nebraska, for three years returning to the University of Nebraska at Kearney in 1987 to teach ceramics, retiring in 2014 as Professor Emeritus.
Jacobson is well known for his sculptural ceramic teapots, ewers, and vessels which include structural elements that appear to be steel plates, angle iron, bolts, nuts, and screws but are constructed entirely of clay. He also creates beautiful ceramic bowls, cups, and vases.
Jacobson has exhibited in numerous exhibitions including, among others, the 1st National Orton Cone Box show at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, What’s New in Clay at the University of Houston, January White Sale at the Lillstreet Art Center in Chicago, Illinois, The Great American Bowl at the Newport Art Museum, Rhode Island, Vessels Aesthetic at Taft College in California), Wichita National for the Wichita Art Association), the Clay Cup at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, the NCECA Juried Members Exhibition in Atlanta, Georgia.
He has also exhibited in many solo and group exhibitions and his work is part of a number of private and public collections including the Donna Moog Teapot Collection, the William and Donna Nussbaum Collection of Contemporary Crafts, the Edward Orton Jr. Ceramic Foundation, the Museum of Nebraska Art, among others.
Among his awards, Jacobson received a 1991 Nebraska Arts Council Individual Artists Fellowship. In 1992 he was selected as one of nine artists featured in an Nebraska Educational Television production, Is It Art? Images of his work have been included in many publications including the books Best of Pottery 1, Best of Pottery 2, and Ceramic Extruding-Inspiration and Technique.
In 1996, 1999, and 2001, Jacobson was the guest curator for a series of national ceramics exhibitions known as Rendezvous at the Museum of Nebraska Art, Kearney, Nebraska. Jacobson invited nationally recognized ceramic artists to exhibit one work and asked them to invite another ceramic artist of their choosing to exhibit a work also. The Rendezvous exhibitions included notable ceramic artists such as Rudy Autio, Clayton Bailey, Jim Leedy, Richard Notkin, Paul Soldner, Victor Spinski, and Toshiko Takaezu among others.
Many of Jacobson’s students have gone on to become teachers and successful artists in their own right.
Howard D. (Jake) Jacobson ~ by Jean Jacobson
