Henry Halem

Henry Halem discusses working for Harvey Littleton. Oral history interview with Henry Halem by Catherine Whalen and Barb Elam, conducted via telephone, June 3, 2018, Bard Graduate Center. Clip length: 02:45.

Henry Halem: I think I had just turned 30, and I needed a job. So I went to see Harvey Littleton, who was the head of the art department at the University of Wisconsin [Madison]. I knew nothing about glass, and I knew him as a potter, and actually he knew me as a potter, cause I had made a small reputation showing in New York and so on with my clay work. It was fairly successful. I was considered kind of one of the young Turks, I assume. But in any event, he hired me as his assistant. He asked me if I knew anything about glass, I said, ‘No, I don’t.’ And he said, ‘Well, no one else does either, but you know your way around a studio, you know how to build stuff, et cetera, et cetera.’ So I became Littleton’s assistant, and one of my jobs was to work in the glass studio as his assistant—cleaning it, and just doing stuff. And I watched these guys blow glass and so on, and I said, ‘Eh—let me give a try at that.’ So Harvey never really taught, he just kinda showed up every Wednesday and said a few things and left. And that’s basically how I got my introduction to glass; and what happened was, the end of the story is, at some point in 1968, the telephone rang and they were looking for—Kent State University [Kent, Ohio] had called, and they asked if there’s anyone that had any experience with ceramics and glass, and if there was, ‘Would you have them call the school? Would you post the notification of the job availability on the bulletin board or whatever at the university so that we could possibly interview people?’ It was the only school they called because it was the only school that had glass in the country. And someone at Kent State University was interested in starting glass. So in all honesty I never really posted anything. The next day I called up and said, ‘I noticed [laughs] on the bulletin board there’s a job available for someone in ceramics and glass. I’d like to apply for that job.’ Which I did and I got the job, and stayed here 30 years. So that’s how I got into glass.