Arline Fisch

Arline Fisch was born in New York City on August 21, 1931. She learned to sew and weave from her mother and picked up a passion for the color red from her father while growing up in New York. She studied at Skidmore College, receiving her B.S. in Art in 1952. She received her M.A. in Art in 1954 from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. After teaching for two years at Wheaton College, she traveled to Copenhagen, Denmark, on a Fulbright Grant to study silversmithing.

She has received three additional Fulbright grants, one to conduct further research in Denmark and two to lecture in Austria and Uruguay. She has taught at Wheaton College (1954–1956), Skidmore College (1957–1961), and San Diego State University (1961–2000),[2] where she retired in 2000. She also founded the San Diego State University program in Jewelry and Metalsmithing in 1961.[2]

She has exhibited extensively all over the world in group shows and solo exhibitions.

Arline Fisch is best known for the way she handles metal in her pieces. Her book, Textile Techniques in Metal for Jewelers, Textile Artists and Sculptors, is a demonstration of the techniques she developed while trying to combine the textures of weaving with a metal material. She works with thin wire to create forms that have been manipulated in similar ways to knitted or braided fabric. She has cited jewelry of ancient cultures as being a continued reference and inspiration for her work.

• 1952 B.S. in Art, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, New York
• 1954 M.A. in Art, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
• 1956–57 Danish School of Arts and Crafts, Copenhagen
• 1957 Bernhard Hertz Guldvaerefabrik, Copenhagen
• 1959 Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Liberty, Maine
• 1964 School for American Craftsmen, Rochester, New York
• 1966–67 University of Copenhagen and Apprentice School for Gold and Silversmiths, Copenhagen
• 1969 private study, Gabrielsen's Guldsmedie, Kolding, Denmark
• 1970 private study, Gilian Packard and Company, London, England
• 1971 private study, Stig Berg's Solvzmedie, Copenhagen, Denmark

• 1956 Fulbright Research Grant
• 1966 Fulbright Research Grant to Denmark (plus three-month extension)
• 1975 National Endowment for the Arts Craftsman's Fellowship
• 1977 NEA Craftsman's Apprentice Grant
• 1979 NEA Craftsman's Workshop Grant (Project Director)
• 1981 NEA Services to the Field Project Grant
• 1982 Fulbright Grant, Lecturer, Vienna, Austria
• 1985 Declared a "Living Treasure of California" by Resolution of California State Assembly[3]
• 1986 Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY
• CSU Award for Research, Scholarship and Creative Activity
• 1989 Fulbright Grant, Lecturer, Montevideo, Uruguay
• 1990 Meritorious Performance and Professional Promise Award, SDSU
• 1994 Award, “Lifetime Achievement in the Crafts", Nat. Mus. of Women in the Arts, Wash. D.C.
• 1996 Outstanding Professor, San Diego State University
• Distinguished Craft Educator Award, James Renwick Alliance
• 2001 Gold Medal, American Craft Council
• 2002 Doctor of Humane Letters, Skidmore College

In 2002 an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Skidmore College; in 2006 a fifty thousand dollar fellowship award from United States Artists in support of her creative work; and she is honored by the Fresno Art Museum Council Of 100 as the Distinguished Woman Artist for 2012, for which the exhibition, "In the Garden of Delight: Adornments by Arline Fisch," is a celebration.[2]

• Founding Member, Society of North American Goldsmiths (1969)
• Craftsman-Trustee, American Crafts Council (1972–1975)
• Board of Trustees, Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Deer Isle, Maine (1973–1982; 1991–2000)
• Vice President for North America, World Crafts Council (1976–1981)
• Fellow of the American Crafts Council, Class of 1979
• Trustee, American Craft Council, (1994-2000)

• Fisch, Arline et al (March 1, 2000). Elegant Fantasy: The Jewelry of Arline Fisch (English & German Edition). Stuttgart: Arnoldsche.[4]
• Fisch, Arline (October 1, 2003). Textile Techniques in Metal: For Jewelers, Textile Artists, & Sculptors. NY: Lark Books.[5]
• Fisch, Arline (March 1, 2009). Crocheted Wire Jewelry: Innovative Designs & Projects by Leading Artists. NY: Lark Books.[6]

• Kunstindustrimuseet, Oslo, Norway
• Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
• Museum of Applied Art, Trondheim, Norway
• Museum of Arts and Design, New York City
• National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Japan
• National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh, Scotland
• Racine Art Museum, Wisconsin
• Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C.
• Vatican Museum, Rome
• Victoria & Albert Museum, London[7]

• An interview with Arline M. Fisch, conducted in 2001 July 29-30, by Sharon Church McNabb, for the Archives of American Art
• Artists Spaces' "Big, Bold, Bright."
• Smithsonian American Art Museum, Artist Biography
• Arline Fisch: Hanging Gardens