Martha Jackson Jarvis

Martha Jackson Jarvis
Nationality American
Alma mater BFA, Tyler School of Art ; MFA in Sculpture and Ceramics, Antioch University
Known for Sculpture

Martha Jackson Jarvis (born 1952, Lynchburg, Virginia; grew up in Philadelphia, based in the Washington D.C. area) is an American artist known for her mixed-media installations that explore aspects of African, African American, and Native American spirituality, ecological concerns and the role of women in preserving indigenous cultures.[1] Her installations are composed using a variety of natural materials including terra-cotta, sand, copper, recycled stone, glass, wood and coal. Her outdoor urban public sculpture, site-specific rural sculpture, and more portable sculpture addresses issues of culture, particularly Southern African-American, and history. She is best known for her enduring outdoor public sculptures including "Music of the Spheres" Fannie Mae Plaza, by University of the District of Columbia and Van Ness Metro station, Washington, D.C. 20003 and "Crossroads/Trickster I," North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, 2005. In 2000, Jarvis received the Creative Capital Award in the discipline of Visual Arts.[2]

Michelle Joan Wilkerson, curator of the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture wrote "Jackson Jarvis works with natural materials, including clay, glass, wood, and stone, to create sculpture in the round, using traditional African dung firing and Japanese raku techniques. By incorporating the clay shards that scatter in the firing process into her mosaics, the artist draws on African and African American burial traditions that similarly adorn gravesites with broken plates and crockery."

Biography

Jackson spent her first thirteen years in the southern United States in an era when southern folkways prevailed, and integration had not yet taken place. This exerted an enduring influence upon her art. As a child growing up in Lynchburg, Virginia, Jackson accompanied her grandmother to a local spring to gather white clay. Making clay dolls and other objects inspired Martha at an early age to want to be an artist.[1] The family moved to Philadelphia when she was thirteen.[3]

Her freshman year at Howard University in 1970 was very influential due to the active presence of artists including Lois Mailou Jones, Ed Love, Jeff Donaldson, and Elizabeth Catlett. Nevertheless, she transferred to Tyler University, Philadelphia, to study ceramics.[3] Jackson married Bernard Jarvis, the cousin of her writer friend Bebe Moore Campbell; she continued her studio work while her children Njena and Bernard Jr. were young.[3]

Exhibitions

  • 1977 - African American Historical Museum, Philadelphia, PA
  • 1980 - Washington Project for the Arts (WPA), Washington, D.C.
  • 1981 - Howard University, Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.[1]
  • 1996 - Structuring Energy at the Corcoran Gallery, Washington, DC[1]
  • Addison-Ripley Fine Arts, Washington D.C.,
  • Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania
  • Dumbarton Oaks Museum, Outside/IN, Washington D.C., 2018

Works

  • Gathering, 1988, at the behest o the University Gallery of the University of Delaware, this installation is a circular gathering, forty feet in diameter, consisting of irregular shaped forms of fired and glazed clay, broken plates, cups and saucers, representing links to Jackson's grandmother's African-derived funerary ritual of laying broken pottery on graves.[4]
  • Crossroads/Trickster I, 2005, Commissioned by the North Carolina Museum of Art [5]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Farris, Phoebe. Women Artists of Color: A Bio-critical Sourcebook to 20th Century Artists in the Americas. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1999. Print.
  2. ↑ http://creative-capital.org/projects/view/269
  3. 1 2 3 Swift, Mary. "The Power of One: Martha Jackson Jarvis". Washington Review (February–March 1995).
  4. ↑ Farris, P. (Ed)(1999). African American Women Artists. Greenwood Press. Westport, CT
  5. ↑ "Crossroads/Trickster". ArtNC. Retrieved 2014-02-01.
  • Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture (2011). Material Girls: Contemporary Black Women Artists (1st ed.). Baltimore, MD: Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture. ISBN 9780615436142.
  • James, Curtia (January–February 2004). "Martha Jackson Jarvis: The Process of Discovery". Sculpture.org. 22 (1). Retrieved 2014-02-01.
  • Weaver, A.M. (2013-01-08). "Martha Jackson Jarvis". Art in America = Reviews. Newark, at University of Delaware. Retrieved 2014-02-01.
  • "Martha Jackson Jarvis - Biography". Artfacts.net. 2013-02-17. Retrieved 2014-02-01.
  • "Martha Jackson Jarvis - Stories - Who We Are". Institute of International Education. Retrieved 2014-02-01.
  • Trescott, Jacqueline (2011-08-12). "'Material Girls': 8 African American artists update a tradition". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2014-02-01.
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