Image courtesy of The Corning Museum of Glass.

Tina Oldknow

Scholar, author, and curator Tina Oldknow (1955– ) retired from The Corning Museum of Glass in 2015 after a 16-year career as senior curator of modern and contemporary glass. Prior to joining Corning, Oldknow held positions at several other museums, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Seattle Museum of Art. She has curated over 30 exhibitions in her career and has authored over 100 books, articles, and essays on glass. She also served as editor of the Glass Art Society Journal from 1996 to 2001, and she was a juror and editor, with Richard Price, for the Corning Museum’s annual New Glass Review from 2000 to 2016. Oldknow holds a BA in art history from the University of California, Los Angeles (1978) and an MA in art history from the University of Pennsylvania (1982).

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Tina Oldknow gives a synopsis of studio glass’ history and growth

1:43 Transcript

Tina Oldknow gives a synopsis of studio glass’ history and growth. Oral history interview with Tina Oldknow, March 22, 2018, Bard Graduate Center. Clip length: 01:42.

Tina Oldknow: Oh, it was huge. It really was radical. Once you—move the material out of industry and away from the bottom line, and one of the things to remember is many of the artists who were working with glass in the sixties and seventies barely sold anything. You know, they weren’t doing it to make a killing on the market or, you know, they didn’t have the prices they have today, they didn’t have the success, they built all that. They built the market, they built, you know, kind of all those things. They built their careers, they made incredible technical innovations. I kind of compare it, in a way, to when the Bell monopoly broke up, you know, If they were still in charge we would probably still have phones in our houses and, you know, no cellphones. I mean, all these things happened when that happened. And, similarly with glass, when it came out of the factory—came kind of out of the—you know—moving from brief to, you know, whatever you wanna do with material. It was incredible what happened to it. And—I do like to look at the beginning of studio glass and the context of mid-century design and that way you can really appreciate—as opposed to kind of looking now and looking backwards, if you look at it at that time it was kind of forming, it becomes really radical and very interesting. And you also wonder, why was anyone excited about these blobby things that people were making? So, it’s a really interesting story and a very interesting time, that I think is great now to look back at that and really examine what happened, and why, and the personalities that were involved. Many of whom are still alive.

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Tina Oldknow discusses Paul Hollister and other scholars validating studio glass as a new artform.

1:19 Transcript

Tina Oldknow discusses Paul Hollister and other scholars validating studio glass as a new artform. Oral history interview with Tina Oldknow, March 22, 2018, Bard Graduate Center. Clip length: 01:18.

Tina Oldknow: Well, you know, it’s—when you look at it, the people involved in the early years, it was like everyone was important, you know? And Paul, especially, because he was taking it seriously, writing about it, you know, doing critical writing. Those are the kinds of things that validate a new art form which is basically what this was. Because the goal of the—of Harvey Littleton and the pioneering studio glass artist was to look at glass and develop it as a material for contemporary art. Which, you know, it had really been pretty much confined to industry. So this and the other craft-associated materials that were all being developed as new materials for fine art, this was, you know, a goal. And people like Paul were kind of right on that bandwagon. Directors like Paul Smith at the Museum of Contemporary Craft, now the Museum of Arts and Design [New York, New York]—you know, a lot of people, a lot of people kind of came on board. And, not necessarily at the very beginning, but after a while, kind of that momentum grew.

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Tina Oldknow talks about the significance of studio glass in the 1960s and 1970s.

1:32 Transcript

Tina Oldknow talks about the significance of studio glass in the 1960s and 1970s. Oral history interview with Tina Oldknow, March 22, 2018, Bard Graduate Center. Clip length: 01:31.

Tina Oldknow: The one thing I really focus on is access to glass. So, in the beginning, in the sixties, you have very limited access. It’s a small group of artists. They’re beginning to create things in their—using small furnaces in their studios, ver—a new development. So the technology kind of led that as furnace technology has always led glass development to a certain degree. But now, I think especially in the nineties, the kind of end of the studio glass movement comes with increased access to the material. So the new phenomenon in the 1990s of open access studios and glassblowers, casters, flameworkers for hire, for anyone who can—who wants, has an idea to express in glass, they can have it made. But this was not possible before. I mean, if you wanted to work in glass you had to be like oh, Maurice Marinot in the thirties went into his friend’s factory after hours, you know, and worked in glass. Or you had a very primitive set up like Jean Sala in Paris, where he had a bellows-operated furnace and he kind of batched his own glass in small amounts. And I am really talking about hot processes here. So it really has changed very dramatically in terms of now anyone, any artist can access the material. Anybody can take a class, you know, in glass fusing. You know, it’s just so much more available now.

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Tina Oldknow talks about the development of glass as a material and glass accessibility today.

0:58 Transcript

Tina Oldknow talks about the development of glass as a material and glass accessibility today. Oral history interview with Tina Oldknow, March 22, 2018, Bard Graduate Center. Clip length: 00:58.

Tina Oldknow: Oh, it’s definitely a positive. In terms of the development of the material, which is my primary interest—is, you know, is how that material was developed. And it’s fantastic because the more people who approach it and use it, the more ways it—you know, ways to express ideas in it are found. So, for the material it’s fantastic. I think it’s, it’s great for everyone. And it’s very interesting to see the market now, and collectors, and how those are changing; how attitudes are changing. Most recently, I think, what we have seen is huge expansion in the design world and what people are interested in now. And so, you know, it’s kind of another beginning in terms of where can you go now. There’s so many things to do. There’s so many things about the material still to discover. So I think it’s a very exciting time.

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Tina Oldknow discusses her interest in glass.

1:08 Transcript

Tina Oldknow discusses her interest in glass. Oral history interview with Tina Oldknow, March 22, 2018, Bard Graduate Center. Clip length: 01:08.

Tina Oldknow: Oh, I think it’s definitely the fire and the light. I think from a—you know, that’s kind of a purely emotional reaction, and of course so many artists have exploited that. But, intellectually I think glass is a mystery. You know, it’s not a solid, it’s not a—you’ve heard this, it’s not a gas. It’s not a liquid, it’s another kind of molecular structure we have—in fact, the Corning scientists say that glass isn’t a single material, it’s a state of matter. So you have glassy steel, you have glassy concrete, you have glassy all kinds of things. So, I think the mystery of that material and the kind of different ways you can make it into so many things. It’s such a mimic. It can mimic anything. It mimics, you know, gems. It mimics rocks. I mean, it can mimic a lot of other materials. So, I think there’s just the versatility of it is fascinating to people. And the different states that you can work it in: opaque, translucent, or transparent, there’s a lot of—a lot of places to go with it.

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Tina Oldknow discusses the Corning ‘79 exhibition.

00:13 Transcript

Tina Oldknow discusses the Corning ‘79 exhibition. Oral history interview with Tina Oldknow, March 22, 2018, Bard Graduate Center. Clip length: 00:12.

Tina Oldknow: A lot of people understood, or came to know, what the studio glass movement was because of the Corning show Glass 1979, and more so because of the catalog.

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Tina Oldknow talks about knowledge exchange in studio glass.

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Tina Oldknow talks about knowledge exchange in studio glass. Oral history interview with Tina Oldknow, March 22, 2018, Bard Graduate Center. Clip length: 01:01.

Tina Oldknow: I think that the idea of knowledge exchange in the shaping of American studio glass is incredibly important. Because glassmaking has traditionally been a craft that is very secretive, especially when you’re looking at Europe, and one of the tenets of the American movement was we’re gonna share everything. Everybody knows everything, and people were like, ‘Oh, you know, If I tell them will they copy me or take my technique?’ That has really not happened. People unless they’re doing some sort of derivative work, but that happens everywhere. But, really for the most part, no. People have shared information, and it’s really been great for everyone and it has stimulated creativity. It hasn’t encouraged copying and hasn’t encouraged any of that. It’s encouraged originality. So, it’s been tremendously important and it’s one of the things that distinguishes the studio—American studio glass from other practices.

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Tina Oldknow discusses socialization in the glass community.

0:57 Transcript

Tina Oldknow discusses socialization in the glass community. Oral history interview with Tina Oldknow, March 22, 2018, Bard Graduate Center. Clip length: 00:57.

Tina Oldknow: I was talking to Jim Baker, who was the director of Pilchuck [Pilchuck Glass School, Stanwood, Washington] for many years, who just retired. And we were talking about why the glass community has such a strong community where you get people helping each other, and it’s very collegial, and very unlike many artist groups. And he was saying part of it is because gl—artists have to work together when they are working in—with glass, they tend to be more extroverted personalities, they tend to be more highly socialized. You know, unlike to make a gross generalization, painters. You know, they’re used to working with others. So that’s part of it. But it is definitely a characteristic of the glass community that there is that openness, sharing, involvement, strong community connections.

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