Catherine Whalen discusses Harvey Littleton and the beginning of studio glass. Oral history interview with Catherine Whalen, March 22, 2018, Bard Graduate Center. Clip length: 01:02.

Catherine Whalen: So in the American context, the studio glass movement really gets going in the early 1960s and that happens when Harvey Littleton and Dominick Labino essentially figure out how individual makers can blow glass outside of the factory setting, right? So having a small furnace that you can set up that allows you to do that. And there are some very important workshops in Toledo, Ohio where they’re demonstrating and sharing this technique. And, you know, the first efforts were, in some sense, they were very experimental. So they’re actually doing things like melting down marbles, right, and blowing, you know—finding and using that as a source material. So these first pieces are really about much of—very much about experimentation. They’re figuring out techniques on their own, and they’re figuring out what kind of forms to make. And, you know, vases for example are an early dominant form. And I should say Littleton comes out of the Corning [Corning, New York] glass setting, right? The factory setting, and then becomes interested in this other way of making, outside that setting.