2023 Jurors

Jessica Jane Julius

Jessica Jane Julius, is an interdisciplinary artist who uses glass and mixed media to create installations, objects, imagery, and wearables that embody notions of classification, transformation, interconnectedness, perception, and materiality. Creating works that explore the anxieties and complexities of language through the lens of dyslexia, she attempts to take command of language; visual, verbal, and experimental, to create a tenuous network of creative exchange and correspondence. With a desire to create order, balance, and unity she believes that her gift of dyslexia gives her the ability to see the space in-between, to discover the undetected, and to connect the invisible.

Julius is Associate Professor, Program Head of Glass at Tyler School of Art and Architecture and co-founder of The Burnt Asphalt Family who produces collaborative participatory works. Her works have been exhibited widely, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Museum of Glass Tacoma, Traver Gallery, Heller Gallery, and the Museum of American Glass. Her work has been published in the Washington Post, Glass Quarterly Magazine, and New Glass Review. Julius is the recipient of the York Cultural Alliance grant and awarded residencies at The Creative Glass Center of America and the Museum of Glass. Currently she lives in Philadelphia with her partner and son.

Namita Wiggers

Namita Gupta Wiggers is a writer, educator, and curator based in Portland, OR. Wiggers serves as the founding director of the MA in Critical Craft Studies at Warren Wilson College, the first and only low-residency program focused on craft histories and theory. She co-founded Critical Craft Forum, an online and onsite platform for dialogue and exchange including projects such as annual College Art Association Conference sessions from 2009-2019. Wiggers served as curator and then chief curator and director of Museum of Contemporary Craft/PNCA from 2004–14. Prior experiences as a museum educator, design researcher, studio jeweler, and life as an American of South Asian heritage also shape her research and writing on craft and culture.