Image courtesy of Jay Musler.

Jay Musler

Born in Sacramento, California, artist Jay Musler (1949– ) attended the California College of the Arts in Oakland from 1968 to 1971, where he studied glass under Marvin Lipofsky. Musler joined Maslach Art Glass in Greenbrae, California, in 1972 and worked there for several years until he established his own studio in the Bay Area. Musler’s pieces are known for their incorporation of cut and sandblasted glass techniques. Many are assembled and include the application of oil paint.

Works

Beyond the Dunes, 2005. Sandblasted glass, oil paint. H: 33 in, L: 29 in, W: 6 in. Image courtesy of Jay Musler.

Burn Fuel, 1996. Sandblasted glass, oil paint. H: 19 in, W: 19 in, D: 19 in. Image courtesy of Jay Musler.

Cityscape, 1981. Overall H: 23.2 cm, Diam (max): 45.6 cm. Collection of The Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York (82.4.8).

Jay Musler discusses Marvin Lipofsky.

Playing01:49 Transcript
Jay Mulser

Jay Musler discusses Marvin Lipofsky. Oral history interview with Jay Musler by Barb Elam, conducted via telephone, September 5, 2019, Bard Graduate Center. Clip length: 01:48.

Jay Musler: Well, let’s see—I first met Marvin in 1968? And [clears throat] you know, I went—I took a summer session at the California College of Arts & Crafts [California College of the Arts, formerly California College of Arts & Crafts, Oakland, California], and he said, ‘Oh, sure, come on in to the class.’ And so I was new to it and—but you know. Most of the time he wasn’t there. [laughs] And when he was there, he made his presence felt. [laughs] I mean, he was confrontational, and—but you can get around that. And I would talk to him occasionally, but I really got to know Marvin in the nineties. I had a studio in San Francisco, and we had to leave because they were going to tear down the building. So I was—one day I was walking through Berkeley, where I had moved, and I ran into him on the street and I told him my situation, and he says, ‘Oh, I have a studio for rent.’ So I rented from him for 17 years. And I’d see him occasionally. If not almost every day, at least once a week. [laughs] And, you know—he was a complainer. That’s the best I can do to explain—but also, he was a very generous person, I thought—and very knowledgeable.

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Jay Musler describes how he learned to cut glass while working in a factory.

Playing2:01 Transcript
Jay Musler

Jay Musler describes learning to cut glass while working in a factory. Oral history interview with Jay Musler by Barb Elam, conducted via telephone, September 5, 2019, Bard Graduate Center. Clip length: 02:01.

Jay Musler: I’ve worked in a—I guess you could define it as a glass factory. Well, it was a small studio in Marin County [California], and I worked there for about, almost 10 years doing various glassblowing jobs. I learned a skill that not too many people could do at the time. That always certainly interested me. But, at the same time, it was very repetitious, and I didn’t want to do that. [laughs] So on my spare time at work, I would grab a piece of glass, and take it to the saw, and start cutting it up. And this is kind of how I got started making pieces. And my interests shifted when I get kind of good at it. And, ‘Well, maybe I can make this happen.’ And I put some pieces in small craft shows, and they were well received. So, you know, I kind of stuck with that, going that route, which eventually led to me leaving the studio, the small glass studio. And I went off on my own. And then about a year later I get an NEA grant, which really helped me establish my own studio. So that’s what happened. But technique—I basically had to learn it all over again when I became an artist. And it changed so much [laughs] that I can’t really say that technique is a part of my work. I mean, I understand glass, and I’ve become more of a lampworker than anything else. But, I did fabricating, and lots of gluing, and I did painting. I used—all my colors were from oil paints.

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Jay Musler talks about Marvin Lipofsky encouraging him to move “beyond the bubble.”

Playing1:06 Transcript
Jay Musler

Jay Musler talks about Marvin Lipofsky encouraging him to move “beyond the bubble.” Oral history interview with Jay Musler by Barb Elam, conducted via telephone, September 5, 2019, Bard Graduate Center. Clip length: 01:06.

Jay Musler: Well, you know, Marvin suggested to me at an early age that I take glass beyond, you know, the bubble. And I said, ‘Oh, okay, I’ll think about that.’ And so it kind of gave me the idea that I can do much more with glass than what can be done on a blowpipe. And that really changed my attitude, and I always kept that, you know, that thought. And I used it earlier on. I mean, I’m not a real trendsetter, I think, in glass. I just did things differently, and people either accept it or they didn’t. And that’s fine with me. But, you know, I just wanted to do—I had all these ideas, and glass was my vehicle.

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Jay Musler discusses buying plate glass and other types of glass.

Playing0:52 Transcript
Mary Shaffer

Jay Musler discusses buying glass. Oral history interview with Jay Musler by Barb Elam, conducted via telephone, September 5, 2019, Bard Graduate Center. Clip length: 00:52.

Jay Musler: Well, most of the glass I use is regular window glass, you know? And so I would go down to the local glass window place, and buy all kinds of plate glass. Take it back to my studio and cut it up, sandblast it, and paint it. Also, I use a lot of borosilicate glass, which is already made. You buy it in wads and tubes, and I can manipulate that into shapes and forms, and put everything together and make stuff. But that’s just—seems like a natural progression.

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Jay Musler talks about working with Therman Statom.

Playing1:13 Transcript
Jay Musler

Jay Musler talks about working with Therman Statom. Oral history interview with Jay Musler by Barb Elam, conducted via telephone, September 5, 2019, Bard Graduate Center. Clip length: 01:13.

Jay Musler: Well, Thurman said—he was all—he really liked to help people out a lot. And so he approached me one day and he says, ‘Hey, man,’ you know, ‘We should try blowing these,’ you see, I was making these masks, and I would construct them all out of plate glass, and he said, ‘Well, have you ever thought about blowing them?’ and so, well—I’m not that skilled, I can’t do that. And so he said, ‘I’ll do it.’ So he made these big conical shapes for me out of glass, and I split them in half and made mask heads out of them. [clears throat] And then construct the rest of the sculpture. But he was good that way. Sort of got me moving in a different direction—which led to other things. And yeah, besides that we were good friends. You know, we used to hang out and do things together.

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Glass artist Jay Musler describes his experience at Penland.

Playing00:58 Transcript
Jay Musler

Jay Musler describes his experience at Penland. Oral history interview with Jay Musler by Barb Elam, conducted via telephone, September 5, 2019, Bard Graduate Center. Clip length: 00:58.

Jay Musler: Well, Penland was an incredible school. You know, it just—it’s not all glass. It’s a number of different things, fiber, metal, ceramics. And I know when I first went there, some students came by and they saw some work I was doing and said, ‘Oh, can I borrow this?’ and I said, ‘Sure, go ahead and take it.’ And they came back and they had woven all this fiber into the glass, and, I said, ‘Wow. This is great. I like this.’ [laughs] But, that’s teaching, and at Penland they encourage people to experiment with different materials and whatnot. But I did like that experience.

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Bibliography

Writings by Paul Hollister Bibliography

“Jay Musler’s Painted Glass: The Face of Anger.” Neues Glas, no. 1 (January/March 1985): 12–19.

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