Jason Robert Bauer (b. 1986) is an American artist and co-founder of J & R Bauer Inc., a glass fabrication studio; The Third Rooom, a design brand bridging the natural and the divine; and the Glass Database, an open-access resource for the studio glass field.
Bauer came to glass through three practices: soccer, acrobatics, and art. Each left an imprint. From acrobatics, technique as something earned in the body — a move is either landed or it isn't. From soccer, individual skill as meaningful only within a group. From art, the need to make something that did not exist before. Glass satisfies all three: molten material demands full attention to its ebb and flow, hot glass at scale often requires the help of multiple people, and every piece is an act of creation under pressure.
His practice pairs this technical rigor with intuition. Where fabrication proceeds by measurement and repetition, the work itself — extending from glass into light, time, sound, and performance — is guided by intuitive process, treating making as a means of expanding consciousness rather than executing a plan. The Third Rooom carries that ethos into objects for daily life; the Glass Database carries it into the field, on the conviction that a community, like a material, is built with others.
Bauer’s work has been exhibited at Fort Makers, The Assemblage, Lorimoto Gallery, The Bitter End, and Bowery Electric in New York City, as well as the Chrysler Museum of Art, Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland, and the Toledo Museum of Art. He has participated in artist residencies at STARworks, the Pittsburgh Glass Center, and the Penland School of Crafts, among others. His work has been featured in publications including The New York Times, New York Magazine, Dwell, Design Milk, and Sight Unseen.
JasonRobertBauer@gmail.com