MJ Glassworks
Matt Jackson—About the Artist
Matt started blowing glass at his dad’s sign company, Jackson Signs and Designs, when he was 19. He was taught by 80 year-old Gordy Smith and a crazy guy named Jim from Chicago.
He blew glass for commercial neon architectural lighting and borosilicate sculptures for the next 20 years. In 2006, he began to apprentice and blow off-hand glass with Mike Stevens. In 2010, he realized they were throwing away a lot of broken pieces of “garbage glass” and started recycling it, melting it in a kiln into fish and other designs.
He likes to create pieces of blown glass, neon, and fused, and he really enjoys combining all three techniques.
Boredom and curiosity influenced Matt to become an artist. He’s now done neon glass for 20 years, blown glass for 8, fused for 4-5 years, and also lampwork and borosilicate along the way.
His goals for the future are to continue to combine these basic three techniques: blown, fused, and neon.
When he’s not playing with glass, he spends time with Ashley, Lily, and Belle, chasing elk, playing claw hammer banjo, and trying to understand the Snake River.
Matt Jackson—Artist Statement
What I enjoy about working with hot glass is how flexible it is and how quickly it stops being so manageable. I like the challenge of the time window I have to create the piece.
I’m inspired to create glass art that I’ve never seen before.
My favorite colors are blues and greens, representing water and grass, as they are very calming colors.
I like nature, and when you make a fish or a flower out of glass, it seems that the juxtaposition seems a little out of place, not like a painting or woodwork. I like natural things done out of metal and glass. I like to have a general idea or direction when I work with glass, but the glass does take its own organic form. I really like flowers and fish. I’ll take an idea of a flower, rather than a specific flower, and then see how it morphs into its own kind of flower. I don’t try to make fish look like any kind of fish and the shape changes as I work with it.
My favorite thing about my work is both other people’s reaction to it and my own reaction to the work. A lot of my motivation is curiosity to see what will happen. Opening the kiln is like Christmas morning. No peeking!
I’m a musician, as well as an artist, and music is really expressive—glass isn’t as expressive. If someone doesn’t like my music it hurts my feelings. Glass is more subjective. Glass has always struck me as something pretty or beautiful, not awe-inspiring.
I get inspiration for my glass art from nature and glass accidents. You have an accident and then incorporate that in later on in your work.
Creating art makes me feel different things. Sometimes working with it makes me feel frustrated, but completing it makes me feel unique, good, and really satisfied.
mattjacksoneon@yahoo.com
801-209-5231