R. JASON HOWARD

R Jason Howard is an up and coming progressive glass artist from upstate New York who specializes in borosilicate flameworking., a style of glassblowing that uses a powerful torch to create intricate, detailed and colorful glass objects directly in the flame. As a two time NICHE awards finalist in glass, He is becoming well known for his sculptural interpretations of vessels and colorful insect life forms, while pushing the technical and cultural boundaries within his craft.

Jason first began working with glass in 1997 as a senior studying ceramics at Hamilton College. Looking for an additional medium to compliment the earthy raw quality of clay and the challenge of glaze formulation, kiln formed soft glass became the seductive material of choice and helped complete his senior thesis. Transfixed by its alluring qualities of light and the sheer technical challenge, glass experimentation soon turned to obsession and total immersion. For the next few years at the Studio of the Corning Museum of Glass, He began studying both off-hand glassblowing and flameworking with renowned artists such as Cesare Toffolo, Roger Parramore, William Gudenrath, Robert Mickelsen, James Nowack, and Loren Stump. Now as a technical and artistic consultant for Northstar Glassworks, a colored glass manufacturing company, he remains close to the experimental testing process that shapes the final product he uses.

Jason’s current work and self invented series of “Inside Out Hollow Marbles” are an exploration of color, meditation, and form using cutting edge and “New School” techniques to capture complexity in the simplest of forms, the sphere.

Process explanation:

Hollow marbles are made at the torch using borosilicate glasses such as Pyrex. They begin as tubing instead of solid rod or cane like most marbles are made from. The tubing is flared open like a funnel, and the designs are drawn on the inside of the flare and sometimes manipulated later. Metallic fuming is also used on some of the marbles. Tiny pieces of pure silver or gold are vaporized in the flame and added to the inside surface of the glass. Gold fuming can have a pink or reflective gold color, as well as a metallic shiny green color if used in combination with silver. Silver by itself is responsible for the whitish or hazy blue background seen on some of the marbles. Sometimes I use this fuming in the foreground to accent or alter some of the colors in the design. The best example of this is on some of the dot marbles where the colors have a shininess to them. After all the design work is in place I begin to melt the flare closed trapping the designs on the inside of the glass. This process has been nicknamed "inside out" glass because the designs on the inside are meant to be looked at from the outside and all designs are in reverse. This process is rather like reverse painting on glass, as the details are added first, and the background colors are added last. As the colors melt into their clear base, they take on a very watery and deep look, unlike surface designs which appear rather flat. While the marbles look like they have been encased, they are not at all. The act of shrinking down the clear flare compresses the design and alters its appearance, while tightening up tiny lines and dots and maintaining a unique look that is impossible to achieve in any other way. it is for this reason why I've personally adapted this process to marble making: to capture in a small sphere the beautiful look of inside out designs. The physical act of making a marble perfectly even and hollow is extremely difficult to do. Unlike standard marbles which can be worked as long as one likes and are one of the easiest things to learn in glassblowing, these hollow marbles are challenging and must be made quickly and done in one try. Sealing off an air bubble while the glass is still hot is difficult because as the glass cools the air pressure inside drops and any hot spot in the surface can become a suction dimple. Conversely, the air can also expand if the marble is heated too much, and that distorts the entire shape, pulling it totally off round. When done correctly, the results are beautiful and the marbles are totally unique, if not bewildering. To pick up a large one is like living on the moon. You expect it to be heavy, but it is deceptively light.