In a 1981 interview with Paul Hollister, Don Shepherd talks about being a designer for Blenko and making a mold made out of coat hangers. Interview with Don Shepherd by Paul Hollister, June 10, 1981. (Rakow title: Don Shepherd interview [sound recording], BIB ID: 168505) Clip length: 01:51.

Don Shepherd (DS): And I live in Connecticut and I go to the glass factory once a month for a week.

Paul Hollister (PH): And give them the designs for the next—

DS: I—I do more than that, I mean, I’m not a carrier of paper concepts. I mean I make the molds and I show them how to use the molds and I [inaudible] the standards.

PH: What are the molds made out of?

DS: Every—we make molds—I think that’s part of the reason that I think I work well as a factory designer is my technological background is one where I have a familiarity—a broad-based familiarity with a lot of media techniques that have no set standard for what a mold is made out of, it’s really a conceptual thing that’s part of the—what you’re trying to create. It depends on concept as to what the mold will be made out of. It’s been made literally out of a—about anything you can imagine—

PH: Really?

DS: I did one a couple years ago made out of coat hangers—

PH: Hmm.

DS: —out of heavy duty coat hangers that opened and closed and expanded as you were blowing and had all kinds of undercuts but because of the flexibility of the mold you could just lift it right out.

PH: Hmm.

DS:  Like a ribbed [inaudible]—

PH: Yeah.

DS: —an interesting piece. And you also had a torque to it—a twist to it, that you could just—because it—when you tied this rope on the top of it and the wire that, when you closed it up and you could just see the [inaudible] blowing [inaudible] the piece would just breath like this and then when you opened it up you can take the wire off, it would open up just like this, and—but you still had to pull to get it out, but it would come out and with all kinds of undercuts to it.