School of Art & Design Speaker Series

Megan Jacobs (b. 1979, American) is an artist whose work explores delicate relationships—the interweaving between two partners in love, the bond of parent and child, and interdependence between humans and the living world.

Jacobs’ work has been exhibited nationally and internationally in numerous exhibitions at venues such as Aperture Gallery, Saatchi Gallery, the Museum of New Art (MONA), The FENCE, Blue Sky Gallery, and the International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA), among others. Her work has been featured in Adbusters, Musee Magazine, Lenscratch, Feature Shoot, Frankie Magazine, F-STOP Magazine, Fraction Magazine, and other publications. Her Hidden Mothers series was selected for Critical Mass Top 50. Her work was recently published in an anthology of women photographers, Eye Mama: Poetic Truths of Home and Motherhood. Megan is a member of the Eco Echo Art Collective. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico with her partner and their two children.

Danny Saathoff is a Minnesota based artist and art educator. He is a sculptor/mixed media artist and teaches metalsmithing and jewelry design at Carleton College. His large-scale sculptures have been commissioned by hospitals, restaurants, airports and municipalities. Danny Graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Stout in 1995 and immediately moved to the mountains of Colorado. After seven years supporting his skiing habit by working as a metalsmith, construction laborer, snowmobile tour guide, picture framer and sign shop owner (in that order), he moved back to Minneapolis to really make a go at being a full-time artist and jewelry designer. His first shows focused on the jewelry but he soon began exploring larger scale sculpture. Eventually, Danny was receiving commissions from hospitals, restaurants, airports and municipalities for his sculptures. These endeavors led to a visiting artist teaching gig at Carleton College. One term turned into another, then an offer of an annual contract which turned into his current role as Faculty on Continuing Appointment (FOCA).

Statement

In an age of cell phones, instant messages, sports scores and election results scrolling across the increasingly wide screens of our lives, my art begs its viewers to slow down. Slow to a crawl. Interact with and witness change. Understand the slowness of change. Do not let the piece be another streak of light and color and shape in the list of images of your day. It will take a moment—or two…or three—to take it in.

Capturing the steady changes of time, even in a mechanized piece, is difficult, but it is central to my philosophy as an artist. Beautiful things, for me, come about slowly. Making my art includes the process of selecting individual components, sometimes, from what many consider relics from the past. Separating and re-combining the components with other pieces strips the artifact of inherent prejudice. The new work becomes purely about itself.

In my process, I consider the history and meaning of each part, first understanding each component in its expected place and function in the world. Then I try to step away from preconceptions in order to imagine and explore other possibilities. I hope the process and philosophy allows viewers to let their own history, perceptions—and even baggage—affect the way they experience the work.

The result is a unified whole of individual elements that were never intended to work together. For me, this is stopping time; it is reconsidering the identity of each individual part and reconnecting it with others.

My art rejects that notion of speed that seems to drive our lives. The finished piece imitates the way it was created, its thoughts and ideas parsed out through hours of assembly. I do not always know the core meaning of the piece until I spend considerable time with it, in a sort of hesitant conversation.

I hope that you will take a moment—or two…or three. See what happens.