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Object Lesson: Thora Jacobson
March 5, 2021 @ 6:30 pm - 7:30 pm
Free
Object Lesson | Thora Jacobson | March 5, 2021 at 6:30 pm
This event has been RESCHEDULED for March 2021
Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82823779295
Join us for First Friday Object Lesson followed by a festive virtual happy hour. Object Lesson is a monthly First Friday speaker series that opens wide the cases of the Center’s Museum Collection through the perspectives of individuals from the worlds of art, design, performance, community activism, education, and more, creating fresh dialogues about the Collection and its objects. The series invites the public for an up-close and personal experience in an informal, discursive setting that will encourage exploration of the many treasures in the Collection.
These days, Thora Jacobson is a visual arts management consultant focusing on systems development, program design, and strategic planning. She is also an independent curator, having organized in 2019 an exhibition at InLiquid of materials-based artists who have taught in Philadelphia area art schools and influenced generations of students. In September 2020, she juried CRAFT! – Da Vinci’s first contemporary all-craft exhibition in its 89-year history.
She retired from full time employment in January 2018 when the Philadelphia Art Alliance, where she had been Executive Director for four years, became part of the University of the Arts. For three years prior to her tenure at the Art Alliance, she worked at Mural Arts Philadelphia where she served as Director of Design Review and managed the development and publication of Mural Arts @ 30 that examined the development and expansion of the organization over its first 30 years.
Prior to that, Jacobson conducted a small research project for the Social Impact of the Arts Project at the University of Pennsylvania on “natural” cultural districts and created a strategic plan for the Asian Arts Initiative. From the end of 2008 to June 2010 Thora served as Chief Operating Officer at Mural Arts for two years and for three years before that, she was COO for the inaugural iteration of Philagrafika 2010, the first international festival of the printed image in Philadelphia. From 1972 to 2006, she was on staff of Philadelphia’s Samuel S. Fleisher Art Memorial, serving as its Chief Executive Officer for 23 of those years.
She was the Chair of the Philadelphia Art Commission from 1992 to 2001 and was a Trustee and Officer of the National Guild of Community Arts Education from 2005 to 2009. In 2006, Jacobson was honored by Tri-State Artists Equity for her service to the arts community, and also by Moore College of Art and Design with the Visionary Woman Award which she shared with art historian Linda Nochlin and the late photographer Mary Ellen Mark.
This event is free to the public. The Center for Art in Wood interprets, nurtures, and champions creative engagement and expansion of art, craft, and design in wood to enhance the public’s understanding and appreciation of it. A suggested donation of $5 per person enables us to provide programs and exhibitions throughout the year.