R Jason Howard is a progressive glass artist who specializes in borosilicate flameworking. He lives in Skaneateles, NY with his wife and children, blowing glass full time and running his production studio, Cicada Glassworks. His current work draws on a unique combination of traditional Italian techniques and self-invented processes to create large, organic, colorful forms that push the boundaries of what flameworked glass can do. Jason first began working with glass in 1997 as a senior studying ceramics at Hamilton College, with glass artist, Robert Palusky. After a two year internship as Hamilton’s ceramic studio technician, and a scholarship to the Studio of the Corning Museum of Glass, he began studying both off-hand glassblowing and flameworking, with renowned artists such as Cesare Toffolo, Emilio Santini, William Gudenrath, Robert Mickelsen, James Nowak, Suellen Fowler, and Loren Stump. Jason has also worked as a technical and artistic consultant for Northstar Glassworks, developing and reformulating colored borosilicate glasses, including the popular color “Onyx.” He is well known in the glassblowing community for custom tuning German torches, and now has a “J Howard Pro Model” available from the Herbert Arnold company. He demonstrates at conferences, and teaches workshops and classes, most recently in Tokyo and Kyoto Japan. Jason’s work is exhibited internationally in museums and galleries such as Snyderman-Works in Philadelphia, the Museum of Art and Design in NYC, the Museum of Glass in Tacoma Washington, Kittrell-Riffkind Artglass in Dallas, and Pismo Gallery in Denver. His work is also featured in the permanent collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Cafesjian Center for the Arts, in Yerevan Armenia. He has been nominated for the NICHE awards several times, and won it in 2009.