A little about me
Fact 01
I'M MJ.
I was born and raised in Iowa, and moved to Missouri for College. Yearning for the mountains, I came out West and continued my love for art, community, and the environment.
Fact 02
RELATIONSHIP WITH NATURE
I feel connected to the earth
through the memories I share with it. I attempt to evoke feelings in my
work that deal with the connections
between body and land, femininity,
environmental psychology, belonging, and the memories we leave in places.
Fact 03
PHOTOGRAPHY
My relationship with photography is inspired through the feelings nature evokes. It started with traveling to national parks with my family and wanting to take photos that captured the awe I had from the land. I've been discovering what it means to take a photo, and why we capture the moments we hold dear to us.
Fact 04
GLASS
I’m interested in the ability of glass to manifest a language of movement, freezing matter in a state of flux, where the ephemeral and intimate are captured. Because of this ability to freeze a moment, I compare glass to photography. Both the photographic image and glass are materials that represent an embedded memory with the poetics of their creation. My practice as a glass artist relies heavily on research and experimentation, understanding the materials to push them to their limits.
Artist Biography:
Melissa Jean Golberg is an interdisciplinary emerging artist living in Seattle, WA. She grew up in Iowa and studied Sculpture and Social Practice for three years at the Kansas City Art Institute in pursuit of her BFA, transferring to University of Washington Seattle for her BA with Honors. She majored in the Interdisciplinary Visual Arts program, focusing her craft in glass, while minoring in Environmental Studies. Melissa Jean is interested in both the material and the methods of making, as she works full-time a Final Assembly Technician building glassblowing equipment while simultaneously teaching at her local art center part-time.
Her current body of work is exploring concepts of the objectification and commodification of women, misogyny, and trauma, using language and glass as materials. She has worked and studied at Pilchuck Glass school, receiving a Fellowship in 2023; volunteered and photographed for Hilltop Artists in Tacoma, WA, and received a residency from She Bends. Melissa Jean has exhibited her work nationally and internationally, including at the Museum of Craft and Design and Berlin through the Glass Art Society.
Artist Statement:
In my interdisciplinary practice, I explore topics of environmental psychology, the connections of body and land, identity, and feminist thought. I’m interested in ways that materials and processes can convey ideas, and explore this through glass, performances, and the uses of language. In my current work, I attempt to build an analogous relationship between glass and women, specifically referencing stereotypes of being fragile, or for decoration. As my work becomes a performance to portray these ideas, I’m additionally referencing the performance of being a woman and a glassblower. Glassblowing is theatrical through the awe that it creates, but it’s also a performance through the movement and fluidity of the glass and blower working together. With the short history that women have in this occupation, I aspire to show the strength and resiliency of women through glass.
I’ve developed inspiration from feminist artists, fairy tales and mythology, and artists who use concepts to make connections between body and land. Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro use eggs to symbolize the pressure of motherhood, reproduction, and the projected role of woman as a housewife. Given contemporary issues with results of the new presidency, using eggs in my work has given it’s symbolism an additional emphasis, as I’m making a statement against those who voted for Trump to 'lower the cost of eggs’. I’ve additionally focused on the connections of body and land, specifically in a female lens and our connections to trees. Both women and trees are thought to provide support, nourishment, and protection in the environment.
I’m fascinated by the act of making, while working in ways that are either detailed and meditative, or heavily collaborative and lively. Attentive to the environment my work is made in, my practice continuously grows through connections and collaborations within the glass community, as well as feminist artists like Judi Chicago who has influenced my work with eggs.
By exploring how materials can be used to convey human experience and connection, I ask viewers to look deeper within the work and further into their own experiences. As a woman, performer, glass artist, writer, and a maker, my practice is always evolving as I gain insight through my own experiences, research, and inspirations from my surroundings and peers.