Flo Perkins discusses the history of studio glass artists working for Venini and her time there in later years. Oral history interview with Flo Perkins by Barb Elam, conducted via telephone, August 20, 2019, Bard Graduate Center. Clip length: 02:54.

Flo Perkins: And so who knows? But there’s this whole history of Venini and American glassblowers, Dale [Chihuly] being the first one who went there. Do you know this? Dale started in textiles, and he somehow got into work at Venini. Now, I forget that detail, it’s in the books, and he worked with—I want to say Checco [Ongaro] who was Lino’s [Tagliapietra] brother-in-law. But anyway, Dale worked at Venini and Dick [Richard Marquis] did too. And see, Dick worked in there, but he brought stuff to them they hadn’t seen. And Toots [Zynsky] worked there, and Jamie [James Carpenter] did it. I don’t think Jamie did a piece there. Someone named Thomas Stearns was the first American who did a piece there. And so there’s a history of that with Venini. And—because—interesting cause Lino sort of—gave me that, you know? He—well he just helped me manage to do something like that, by being supportive of me. And before that Venini thing. I actually—you know, something like, ‘Do you think I could work in a factory over here?’ And somehow, how’d I figure this out—he told me about someone who had a factory, so I contacted them, and I went and blew glass there. I had them make some pieces of mine. I just wanted the experience, cause I figured I would never in my wildest dreams get to be in Venini. And I did that, and it was an odd thing, because when I was there Lino was out of town, and I guess I didn’t do something quite correct in that I contacted the factory directly, I didn’t go through Lino. So I don’t know if I offended him, but I had that experience. And that was very interesting. Certain things came about during that. But to be able to go back and work at Venini was the highlight of my career. It was absolutely fascinating. I don’t care if it wasn’t the original people and it wasn’t the same as it used to be, it was still there. And the man who was the maestro for my project sadly died the year and a half later. So they never made all those pieces. They don’t—they made one flight it was—the pieces were designed in groups, and there were three in each group and—they pretty much sold out this one group and they were lithops. They were three different designs of a lithops, which is a little tiny succulent, but they were enormous. And they sold out through Europe. Fine, I don’t think any Americans bought any, I have no idea. But I just went back there last year. Last year, it wasn’t this year, it was last year and—reconnected with Roberto, the factory’s been reorganized and he invited me to design something. So we’ll see.