Gordon Smith discusses Paul Stankard and talks about paperweights becoming fine art objects. Oral history interview with Gordon Smith by Barb Elam, conducted via telephone, November 26, 2019, Bard Graduate Center. Clip length: 01:23.

Gordon Smith: I think the level of the work, it—I think to say that I’m a—there’s something about—and it’s, it’s kind of bothered me for a number of years, and it actually—this conversation’s come up recently, even among collectors. You know, we’re having a hard time with this word paperweight—because they’re really fine art objects and they’ve evolved from the sixties and the seventies from being a very craft-type object to a fine art object. And really, in the early 1980s, that distinction was made—I don’t know by who and where, but it was in reference to the work Paul Stankard was doing because it was so refined and it was such a step above what you see in craft stores and being done by kind of the weekend warriors that have a hot tank of glass making tank paperweights and selling them at craft fairs and craft shows. These were fine art objects. And then a few of us came along right after that and brought the level of the work itself to such a high level that that’s what defined it as being fine art versus a craft.