Martin Blank, Lino Tagliapietra, Fred Kahl, James Harmon, Jane Bruce, Geoff Isles, and Karen Chambers narrate the 1992 Dale Chihuly and Lino Tagliapietra Venetian series workshop at New York Experimental Glass Workshop. Oral history interview with Martin Blank by Barb Elam, conducted via telephone on January 31, 2020, Bard Graduate Center. Oral history interview with Jane Bruce by Barb Elam and Mike Satalof, conducted on March 22, 2016, Bard Graduate Center. Oral history interview with Karen Chambers by Catherine Whalen and Barb Elam, conducted via telephone on June 14, 2018, Bard Graduate Center. Oral history interview with James Harmon by Barb Elam, conducted via telephone on February 1, 2018, Bard Graduate Center. Oral history interview with Fred Kahl by Barb Elam, conducted via telephone on January 25, 2018, Bard Graduate Center. Oral history interview with Lino Tagliapietra by Isabella Lettere, conducted via telephone on June 28, 2018, Bard Graduate Center. (Translated from Italian to English by Isabella Lettere). Oral history interview with Tina Yelle by Catherine Whalen, conducted via telephone on April 30, 2019, Bard Graduate Center. Clip length: 26:56.

Time stamp: 00:00
Clip 1: Martin Blank talks about his first encounter with Dale Chihuly’s color bars at RISD.

Martin Blank: I think Dale—everyone was always amazed. You know, I met Dale when I was 19 in 1981 at the Rhode Island school of Design. I was 19 and I had just taken Wintersession and switched to the department and Chihuly runs—rolls in and spreads out thousands of dollars worth of color. And you know, we were freaking out about buying a $30 bar of color and it was just, it’s just like this candy, you know, when I see that photo and I think of being back and young, it’s just, I see that photo and it’s all about potential as well. Cause all those, forms of bar for the base, frit for the flowers, and then the new colors that hadn’t been put into the jugs yet. It’s all about potential. And so it just makes me smile knowing that all of that will be transformed into an amazing object of art at some point in the future.

Time stamp: 01:00
Clip 2: James Harmon discusses the history of Chihuly’s 1992 Workshop at NYEGW.

Jim Harmon: If I remember correctly, the reason we were all there was because I was head of the artist’s planning committee for the new studio, and this was kind of the biggest event that happened after we had moved into the new studio. So actually Dale had called me before he was in contact with any of the powers that be—Tina Yelle, or the board members—and sort of inquired as to how good the studio was, and whether or not I would mind being his liaison between the studio and the city and his crew. And I explained to him that it was a brand new studio and we were anxious to have him there, and we thought we could do a really nice job hosting he and his team, and so that’s when it started to happen. And then when he got there, he put me in charge of the coloration of the pieces—which is sort of what I was known for. And so I worked with him before he had arrived, he ordered the colors and then when he got there, I basically set up, according to my complementary color theory all the colors for each different piece, all the cut glass colors. So I would lay them out per piece, one at a time. And we would talk about it, and he would tell me about what he was going to make, he was doing the drawings at the same time I was laying out the color. So it was really fast moving, hands on, everything happening all at once, which is fun. And then I would sort of start the pieces. Depending on how much I needed to get involved or how much of a break the other guys in the special team needed between each piece, but they didn’t really need that much time. So I would start the pieces out, and I was in charge of the punty [laughs] which is one of the critical parts of the piece, believe it or not.

Time stamp: 02:59
Clip 3: Lino Tagliapietra discusses how working with Dale Chihuly was a breakthrough for him.

Lino Tagliapietra: [Translated from Italian] I believe that it was an incredible breakthrough for me—I began to become somewhat of an independent artist, and in a way I began to accumulate a little bit of history because it was very difficult for me to leave Murano and to work as an independent artist in the United States. And working with Dale Chihuly allowed me to have a certain visibility, you see. And in a way meeting Dale Chihuly was very important—very important because it allowed me as well as him, I believe—also through listening to his words, it was almost an historic moment, let’s say because there was an evolution—an artistic vision of glass that was completely—almost revolutionary, let’s say. And this was very, very important. We met a few months before in Venice, we spoke about a project and he showed me some drawings that were a little bit inspired—al [inaudible] 1920 [most likely saying this], by Peking glass and that—I liked. It was interesting. It was—it was more or less [most likely saying this] an intellectually and also artistically important experience.

Time stamp: 04:53
Clip 4: Fred Kahl discusses Dale Chihuly demonstrating the Venetian series at NYEGW.

Fred Kahl: Oh yeah, yeah. I mean, we were anticipating this you know for some real long period of time and—It was a big deal, you know, Chihuly was in the corner with his paints, and it was the full on show it was really—this was early on in the whole Venetians series like, those were fairly new pieces, and were really before then Chihuly was all about those Macchia pieces—and it was sort of like the first real departure from that for him—so it was really exciting work. Nobody had ever really seen this sort of like style of Italian glass blowing up really big like this before, and—it was a really big deal, they—there were sort of 12 people—I would say involved in the blow sessions so they were always, you know, starting pieces, I think, Jim Harmon was starting the bubbles, and—then they were finishing them over here with Lino [Tagliapietra] and bringing bits and all kinds of stuff like that.

Time stamp: 06:13
Clip 5: Martin Blank talks about Lino Tagliapietra shaping the vessel he’s made in Chihuly’s 1992 Venetian series demonstration.

Martin Blank: And so that’s Lino shaping the vessel. Essentially, he’s just come out of a reheat, he’s either going to go to the marver—I think what he’s going to do is marver—it looks like Robbie’s [Robbie Miller] got the wooden paddle there, and it looks like they’re basically just creating the shape of the vessel for—before the adornments go on. My role is—I probably took it to the bench from Lino, when he put the lip wrap on, I brought it up to the glory hole. I took a heat and then he came in as it was getting closer to shaping. And he then stepped in, took control of the pipe, and saw how hot it was, knew how hot he wanted to get it, and now he’s coming out of the glory hole and he’s bringing it over to the marver. Or vice versa, he’s just paddled it and he’s going back to the glory hole for me to take it. I can’t—do you know what I mean? It could be either one of those things. It’s mid step of him shaping a vessel, and we’re all just watching the master work, and we’re there to help him.

Time stamp: 07:12
Clip 6: Martin Blank talks about working with color and Chihuly’s working method in his 1992 Venetian series demonstration at NYEGW.

Martin Blank: And what I love about this image is Lino’s [Tagliapietra] just come out with a he—I think he’s going to swing the neck, but if you look on the background, that’s a great example of what one of the drawings would look like. And that had some number sequence. You know, all of the colors had numbers for the corresponding color. And we all know—we don’t say ‘light green,’ we say ‘K59,’ you know. And in the spots we want when, you know, we always have them by numbers. So if you could zoom in on that photo, there might be a number sequence, and those are referring to what the base color and then one or two leaves in the portraits. So Dale would look at the—Dale would do a drawing. Lino would look at it, he’d do an interpretation of it. And what was lovely about Dale is that he wasn’t into controlling, he was more of a conductor, you know, and letting everyone’s talents contribute to the experience. Dale was always exceptionally open to Lino’s interpretation of what the drawing looked like. And a lot of times that’s where some of the newer, or the most exciting things—that Lino would get inspired because he saw something and then he’d want to share that, “Hey Dale, if we did it like this, check out how it would change the dynamics of the vessel or the ornamentation that I’m applying.’ So that’s why he would paint, and give you a broad idea, and then Lino would start and then interpret. And then as most art—particularly I create, and Dale and Lino, is we’re inspired by doing, we see something, we create something. And good art is always, ‘Ooh, what’s next.’ And you know what’s next by the creation of the previous piece, because that’s giving you something tactical and something concrete, because everything else is just an image in your head, and you have an idea of what it would look like, then when you manifest it in 3-D and there it is, you know, ‘Ooh, well what if the next one had a cluster over here? What if we combined objects? And what if—you know, so your brain just sort of as a sculptor starts, starts working on what the next piece should be, and Dale is super open about that. 

Time stamp: 09:14
Clip 7: Martin Blank discusses a slide of Robbie Miller torching a vessel Lino Tagliapietra made in Chihuly’s 1992 Venetian series demonstration.

Martin Blank: So hard to say what’s happening there. I think what that is, is that Lino has made the vessel, and I’ve just come out from the flash and we’re waiting for the punty to be put on. And so Robbie’s keeping the neck hot, which is the neck being where—just past the blow pipe, you can see some torching going on. And he’s getting that ready cause the bottom of the vessel is still glowing. And so I think we’re getting ready to punty up. And I think what happens is Lino would swing around and sit down. I think I’m swinging around and then I’ll go grab the punty and bring it over, and we’ll punty up the piece.

Time stamp: 09:59
Clip 8: Karen Chambers talks about watching Lino Tagliapietra’s glassblowing at NYEGW.

Karen Chambers: And yes, I did watch Lino blow with Dale [Chihuly] on, I suppose, several occasions. And eating a lunch prepared by Lino and Lina, his wife, because they were both very good cooks.

Time stamp: 10:19
Clip 9: Martin Blank discusses creating the lily forms in Dale Chihuly’s 1992 Venetian series demonstration with Lino Tagliapietra at NYEGW.

Martin Blank: And then Lino began working with Dale and making it—there was about four people prepping all the color, and gathering all the glass to make these lily forms that you see him pulling out in this series of slides. So there’s like three or four people prepping, gathering, gathering, gathering, getting it hot, then saying, ‘Okay, Lino, we’re ready. And then Lino would squeeze it with a footing tool, make the marks, and then he’d heat it and pull it, and then I’d look at Lino and get a wink or a nod. I’d know that I’d had—that he was on his way over. So I would have to be in the furnace and make sure that he had time to play, place it where he wanted, and sort of start out intuitively where I think he’s going to go. And then Lino would pull the lily, cut the lily, and then I’d be at the bench. Fred [Kahl] would have the torches on the punty if need be, and then Lino would walk over with the lily and drape it and I would have to, you know, I just know when he wobbled, nods his head to the left, that meant to turn a little left, turn a little right. Sometimes he would have me take my end of the pipe and go down low. Sometimes he’d have me tip it up or down or whatever. And at the same time, you have to keep the vessel on center, so you can’t let him—because you stressed the punty out if it sags too far. So you have to just sort of—you know, it’s just a lovely dance. You have the sculpture presented to him where he’s applying the adornment, and then you flip it over for a couple of seconds, and then you present where he can work it again for a few seconds, and then you go back and forth. So it’s this little cadence. This lovely little dance that goes on back and forth so that he can adjust. And then he’d be like, ‘Oh, yes. Very nice, I like. Very good.’ And then I go flash in the glory hole, and then someone hopefully would have the next lily ready for him.

Time stamp: 12:06
Clip 10: Martin Blank discusses the level of difficulty and challenges in creating pieces for Dale Chihuly’s 1992 Venetian series.

Martin Blank: Dale is definitely a maximalist and Lino [Tagliapietra] would pile on components and as more got put on it got heavier and heavier and the stakes were higher and higher that it could fall off the pipe. And it was just very, very tricky making sure that it was ready to go because they’ve fallen on the floor. They’ve also cracked on the punty when we break them off. They’ve cracked when you load them in the annealer. So, you know, we get 10 of these lilies on there, and the tension is high.

Time stamp: 12:36
Clip 11: Martin Blank talks about the purpose of a vacuum table in a slide of Chihuly’s 1992 Venetian series demonstration.

Martin Blank: Yeah. So if you look to the right hand photo, there’s a plywood box with a metal lid and the lid has lots of holes drilled in it. And there’s a fan blowing out and all the air has to come through the little holes, and that’s a vacuum table that we would lay silver leaf and gold leaf down. And Dale used a lot of precious metals. A lot of silver, and lots of gold on all of the Venetians. And so one of the last things—Lino [Tagliapietra] might be marvering it right now and then getting ready to run over to that vacuum table and pick up metal.

Time stamp: 13:14
Clip 12: Martin Blank describes Lino Tagliapietra use of a Swedish footing tool in Chihuly’s 1992 Venetian series demonstration.

Martin Blank: This is the next sequence. What he did was he went in the glory hole and he took a heat and the piece started to flare, and what he’s doing is he is using a Swedish footing tool, which is essentially two wooden paddles that are hinged together. And he’s gotten the piece really hot. So Lino’s basically spinning really fast, and it’s like a paddle on either side, and he’s squeezing really hard, and it’s making that orange disc get wider and thinner and thinner and thinner on the edge. And it’s a classic tool for making feet for goblets. From a little round ball, you pat it, grab it with a Swedish footing tool and you squeeze together and woop, it thins out and becomes a foot. So that’s taking your traditional technique, and using it to make it art. Which I love.

Time stamp: 14:00
Clip 13: Tina Yelle talks about Lino Tagliapietra being “the star” of Chihuly’s 1992 Venetian workshop at NYEGW.

Tina Yelle: The thing that struck me in seeing the photos was having Dale there not being the star because it was a Lino workshop really. And that—that—that just reminded me of how artists really were supportive of each other and interested in what each other could do. Everyone I knew absolutely adored Lino. They thought learning how he did things, learning from him was extraordinary, and of course, he was such a terrific guy—very easy to be around. So yeah, I think that that cross-fertilization of different traditions was exciting on both sides, both in that one that—both Lino and Dale were getting something out of it.

Time stamp: 15:00
Clip 14: Martin Blank discusses a slide in Chihuly’s 1992 Venetian series demonstration where Lino Tagliapietra pulls hot glass.

Martin Blank: Yeah. So it’s a great shot because it just shows the fluidity. So I keep talking about this dance and I keep talking about manipulating a liquid, right? We’re enabling this shape and so the—what—and it just looks orange, but Jim [James Harmon] and [Robert] Zimmerman and all the—Joe Rossano, they were all gathering layers and layers and layers to give Lino this ball. And Lino took that ball and squished it. And right there you’re watching the perfect—and just not speaking glassblowers term, but you’re—he’s pulling the taffy. It’s just literally like taffy and he’s letting gravity pull down and he’s pulling up at the same time and he’s responding to it as the gravity is acting, and as the heat is dissipating out of the glass. It is creating a shape. And so he’s intuitively watching that as a sculptor, as he’s pulling in with one hand up with the tweezers and pulling down with the blowpipe. And Robbie’s [Robbie Miller’s] got the little paddle in there. You notice he’s actually guarding Lino’s hands, and he’s got these paddles, he’s there ready to go to, to help out with air. I think that’s an air gun he’s got. So that stand right below. Yeah, that’s air. He’s getting ready if that gets too thin, he’ll give it a quick squirt with air, so that Lino can pull and create that shape. So it’s just sort of a nice little part of the fluidity of why working hot glass is so awesome.

Time stamp: 16:42
Clip 15: James Harmon discusses how long it took to make each Venetian piece at NYEGW’s 1992 Chihuly session.

Jim Harmon: Each piece took, I would say, anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour. And that was, you know, we would start one up—I would start the next piece before the other one was finished. So that actually saved us a lot of time. That was another reason why I was starting them up. So I could get it to the first, with all the color on it and the first bubble stage, and then hand it to the team, just as they were putting the last one in the oven.

Time stamp: 17:23
Clip 16: Martin Blank describes the process of cutting a molten glass lily with Lino Tagliapietra in a slide of Chihuly’s 1992 Venetian series demonstration.

Martin Blank: Okay. So Lino has in the previous slides where I was talking about the vacuum table and the metal, he flattens the form to create the lily, and then he’s got those tweezers or pinzettes and what he’s doing—I’m at the glory hole watching going, ‘Okay, here we go.’ I’ve got three seconds before I need to be at the bench because of what’s happened. What’s happening is, Lino’s pulling out the little trumpet form. Harmone [Jim Harmon] has got his hands there getting ready, and Robbie—it’s actually a pretty good—that’s actually a really good shot because Robbie is in the process of waiting for the final nod, or he already has gotten the nod, but he’s cutting that—what do we call that—lily free. And what will happen is Lino’s, Lino with the tweezers is holding onto that petal. Okay. Harmone and—he’s gonna let go, and Harmone is going to take the blowpipe. Robbie’s going to cut all the way through, and now Lino is going to have that lily in his hand and walk over to me and apply it to the vessel. So it’s right in the middle. Great catching and action of, ‘Here we go, this is the very end.’ Robbie cuts it, Harmone grabs the pipe, Lino walks over, and we stick it onto the vessel.

Time stamp: 18:51
Clip 17: James Harmon talks about getting the nickname “Harmone.”

Jim Harmon: Actually, the person who came up with that name was Italo Scanga. And he didn’t call me Harmone, he called me Monet—after the painter. [laughs] Because I was good with color. And then Dale sort of changed it to Harmone.

Time stamp: 19:10
Clip 18: Fred Kahl talks about Dale Chihuly taking care of his team.

Fred Kahl: Dale always, he—he always took really good care of his people. You know, his core team has always been fiercely loyal—like, I know Jim Mongrain is his sort of main glassblower now, but he—there always was really, sort of, this very tight knit team in that he had, and I—my sense was always that he took really good care of people, so. 

Time stamp: 19:45
Clip 19: Martin Blank describes the moments before applying a component made by Lino Tagliapietra to a vessel in Chihuly’s 1992 Venetian series demonstration.

Martin Blank: And at this point I had better be—I’m around the corner. You can see a few people looking at me, like the guy with the ponytail is looking at me at the bench underneath the exit sign, cause my glory hole’s right around the corner. And Robbie’s—the piece is cut free, Lino’s got it, and we’ve got seconds to apply that to the vessel. 

Time stamp: 20:08
Clip 20: Jane Bruce discusses a show of Dale Chihuly’s Venetian series works at Charles Cowles Gallery.

Jane Bruce: I remember the show of the very first Venetians that Dale had at Charlie Cowles Gallery on West Broadway, and it was beautiful. They were so well exhibited it was just—there wasn’t a huge amount of them and when you walked into Charlie Cowles Gallery, into the main gallery, they were just at sort of chest height, around the—all at the same level around the walls and on little—those box pedestals that come out of the wall. You know, the sleeves. So they were sort of floating. And then in the gallery next door at the same height, right round the walls, right up to each other, were the drawings for the Venetians and they were really beautiful drawings, and then the show with the Venetians and the drawings of the Venetians was just exquisite and you know, Dale did some exquisite shows at Charlie Cowles—very restrained.

Time stamp: 21:11
Clip 21: Fred Kahl discusses Dale Chihuly’s hands-off way of working.

Fred Kahl: You know, Dale—it’s funny, Dale has a real laid back way of working where he just sort of like hires the best people and empowers them to make decisions and pretty much like Lino [Tagliapietra] was calling the shots, like Dale would have these like crazy drawings, but Lino would look at the drawing and then interpret it.

Time stamp: 21:40
Clip 22: Fred Kahl discusses Lino Tagliapietra leaving Murano.

Fred Kahl: It was a really big deal that he had left Murano, right? You know, probably, I’m not sure when the first—I know that Checco Ongaro was one of the first Venetians to leave Italy, like probably like Loredano Rosin had been to Pilchuck, Lino had been to Pilchuck with—I think it was Lino and Checco that first left Murano to go to Pilchuck and it was a big deal, you know like we’re coming at this is at the end of probably like six centuries of Venetians do not share the secrets, right, like their family would be ostracized if they if they left, and I think—I don’t know the full history of Lino and how it was that he came to come to the West, but it was a major deal that he was divulging the secrets of Murano to the rest of the world, you know. I think—for sure, he was ostracized in Murano for giving the stuff away—but, you know, I think their attitude was: it’s dying here. Like the kids in Italy didn’t want to—it was factory work, they didn’t want to do it, there wasn’t a reverence for it, and they saw the writing on the wall that, you know, If they don’t share the stuff it’s going to get lost.’ So—but that was, I think that there were real ramifications of that, in Murano, that they were ostracized for having done that, I mean, that’s the reason why Murano is an island, so that not only the fire wouldn’t spread if there was a fire, but also so they could contain the glassblowers and that goes back to like 1400.

Time stamp: 23:39
Clip 23: James Harmon discusses Lino Tagliapietra’s teaching and his separation from Murano.

Jim Harmon: Every time he works it’s a teaching moment. And I think that’s why he really wanted to come to this country, to be honest with you. He saw the craft dying off in Italy. Since all the excitement over here has happened, and Dale going back and doing this show in the canals in Venice, there’s been some rebirth of excitement over there about glassblowing. But, he wanted to get it off the island and into a culture that was going to keep things alive.

Time stamp: 24:18
Clip 24: Martin Blank talks about Joe Rossano and his work with Dale Chihuly.

Martin Blank: Joe Rossano, he was one of Chihuly’s employees, and he ran The Boathouse [Chihuly’s studio, Seattle, Washington] for years after. So I went, when did I leave? I think I went part-time maybe ‘95 and then he was one of the glassblowers. He worked also for Bill [William] Morris. And then I was like, ‘Here, you take over cause I’m leaving.’ And I trained him on—so he was pretty much instrumental in all of the glassblowing and organizing and production. And then also logistics, like he was instrumental on Chihuly Over Venice, like going to Ireland and getting all the stuff there and not to mention blowing and making a lot of the parts for Dale as well. He made thousands of baskets and thousands of Persians, as well as was on all of the Chihuly/Lino [Tagliapietra] blows. He’s one of the guys that’s never written about that had a very instrumental part of contributing to Chihuly’s success.

Time stamp: 25:15
Clip 25: Martin Blank talks about Robbie Miller, who assisted in the Venetians demonstration.

Martin Blank: There’s a guy in a full metal suit who is—I would bet $1,000, if that’s Robbie Miller inside the fire suit. Robbie was magic. Like the guy was one of the world’s best assistants ever. And he just had this intuitive ability to be there where you needed him to be there without asking.

Time stamp: 25:35
Clip 26: Martin Blank discusses the process of creating pieces with Lino Tagliapietra for Chihuly’s 1992 Venetian series demonstration at NYEGW.

Martin Blank: We’d all lift the piece up into the air and then Lino would bang it with a blow pipe, bang the blow pipe with a wooden stick, and it would break off into Robbie’s hands, who would then scoot and jump into the annealer and settle it and make sure that it got loaded perfectly into the annealer. And then wash and rinse and repeat, you know, someone at that point as all the flowers were done, the next color palette was laid out by Dale or by Charlie Parriott or whoever, and someone was gathering the glass for the body of the vessel of the next piece that we were going to be creating. And we would just maybe have a glass of water and usually not. We just turned around and grabbed the base wherever it was and gather, and then Lino would blow the next vessel shape and just crank it out.