Jay Musler at work in the studio.
GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet: What are you working on?
Jay Musler: I just finished making new work for “Stuff Happens,” a solo show that just opened at Ken Saunders Gallery in Chicago. I made four wall pieces of multicolored layers. I call them “masks” because I was influenced by the masks that I first saw in Mexico. The masks I make today are abstract, more primitive, but they still have an eye and flameworked obects hidden among the layers. I sandblast the glass and then paint it.
I’ve also been working on a commission for a collector in Arizona.
And I’m working on a collaboration project organized by John Miller. Twenty-five artists/glass pioneers will be in the exhibition, which will open at Habatat Gallery in Michigan on Oct 9th, then travel to SOFA CHICAGO this November, and then opens at the Museum of Glass in Tacoma in February 2012.
Finally, I’ve been working on pieces for SOFA in November and for Art Palm Beach in January 2011.
Jay Musler, Triangular Object, 2010. Flameworked glass, oil paint. H 58, W 21, D 11 in. courtesy: ken saunders gallery, chicago.
GLASS: What artwork have you experienced recently that has moved you, and got you thinking about your own work?
Jay: Last December, I visited Art Basel Miami for the first time, and I enjoyed that immensely. The events and shows were overwhelming. I especially enjoyed the graffiti artists who were painting the walls as we walked by!
When I was in Chicago for my opening, I checked out the work at the Carl Hammer Gallery. The bone photographs of Francois Robert, and the snowflake photo-micrographs of Wilson “Snowflake” Bentley were inspiring. I love patterns in nature.
Also, I recently saw the work of Lari Pittman and I thought his pieces were fascinating.
Now I am going backpacking in the Sierras Nevada mountains in California and I’ll surround myself with nature’s art. I am going up to 10,000 feet and that is always awe-inspiring.
In September, I’ll take another week to go to the arts festival at Burning Man in the desert in Nevada in September. I’ve gone seven times and I always return home energized and bursting with ideas.
GLASS: Do you have any upcoming exhibitions where we might see your work?
Jay: My show is at the Ken Saunders Gallery in Chicago through August. I also have a few sculptured wineglasses in the 2010 Taos Art Glass Invitational at the Hulse-Warman Gallery in Taos, New Mexico. My work can also be seen at Mobilia Gallery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Habatat Gallery in Michigan and Imago Gallery in Palm Desert, California.