Karen Jacob is acutely aware of the ever-changing play of light and shadows, the vivid colors, and the contours of the physical world. For her two dimensional work she mainly uses acrylic and pastel paints and occasionally works with oil or watercolor paints to explore color combinations in renditions primarily of landscapes. In creating jewelry she uses crystal, glass, and coral beads and semi-precious stones with various metal wire and other threads to whimsically bind the beads into unique forms.

This past summer she was a resident artist at the Lake Street Gallery in Glen Ar...

Karen Jacob is acutely aware of the ever-changing play of light and shadows, the vivid colors, and the contours of the physical world. For her two dimensional work she mainly uses acrylic and pastel paints and occasionally works with oil or watercolor paints to explore color combinations in renditions primarily of landscapes. In creating jewelry she uses crystal, glass, and coral beads and semi-precious stones with various metal wire and other threads to whimsically bind the beads into unique forms.

This past summer she was a resident artist at the Lake Street Gallery in Glen Arbor, Michigan. She is a member of the Glen Arbor Arts Association and the Northern Indiana Pastel Society.

Jacob has a studio in her home in the Bristol Fruit Hills area of Northern Indiana and currently has an open studio at Graber Designs Gallery in Goshen, Indiana at 208 Main Street where her work is also on display.


Jacob’s interest in creating visual art is intertwined with her life-long interest in peace. A leader of Women’s Action for New Directions and co-recipient with her husband, David Cortright, of the 2004 Gandhi Peace Award, Jacob believes an ability to find beauty is crucial to both peace work and artwork. Jacob states, “Mahatma Gandhi famously said, ‘We must be the change we wish to see’ in addition to my peace activist work I also create art that depicts the beauty of a world at peace.” Jacob said, “I do this with the hope that people can find common ground by ‘visualizing’ peace, by ‘seeing’ the change we want to be.”