Jessica Jane Julius received her MFA in glass from Rochester Institute of Technology and her BFA in glass from Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia.  She taught and assisted teaching at Penland School of Crafts, NC, The Studio at the Corning Museum of Glass, NY, and the Rochester Institute of Technology, NY.  Her work consists of installations dealing with issues questioning our theories of moral, sexual, physiological, and morphological classification.  Her work has been featured in the New Glass Review, and she has shown in places including The Visual Studies Workshop in New York, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, Rutgers University, and Moore College of Art.

Founding member of the Burnt Asphalt Family and instructor at the Temple University glass program, Jessica Jane Julius is an educator of glass and an artist who embraces glass’s fragility as she tries to address the culture of fear through materiality. Julius’ large-scale installation pieces attempt to address how fear penetrates everyday society and our psyche. Julius has exhibited her works at institutions such as the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pilchuck Gallery, and the Museum of American Glass here at WheatonArts. While at WheatonArts, she participated in the Creative Glass fellowship program in 2007 and 2011.

Julius’ work often is a network of glass, whether it be small reflector beads on threads or black glass threads intertwined in anamorphosis formation. She embraces the fragility of the medium as well as the notion of what glass is. Julius challenges the viewers to observe the materiality of her work and question if it is glass. In addition to her exploration of addressing the culture of fear, Julius also uses glass as a vessel to create a feeling of unease while looking at her work.