James Carpenter discusses innovation rather than glass history being a focus in his early days with Dale Chihuly. Oral history interview with James Carpenter by Barb Elam and Jesse Merandy, September 20, 2018, JCDA Studios, New York, New York. Clip length: 00:41.

James Carpenter: The history really wasn’t very prominent [laughs] in our thinking. Because we were, we would look at people like [Maurice] Marinot or some of these early glass artists but, I don’t think we were looking at it in depth in terms of history—longer term history, but going to Venini of course, yeah, you become exposed to that whole Venetian tradition and awareness of that. And in that sense also the awareness of the level of craft that was so highly refined. But I don’t think Dale and I were, we weren’t really thinking about that very much at all. It was more about creating something new that hadn’t really existed before. It’s a little bit about what I keep trying to do.