Kristin Qualls discusses CGCA fellows’ obligation to donate a finished work to the Museum of American Glass. Oral history interview with Kristin Qualls by Catherine Whalen and Barb Elam, July 26, 2019, Wheaton Arts and Cultural Center. Clip length: 01:56.

Kristin Qualls: Yeah, an excellent way to develop a contemporary art collection is to have these contemporary art fellows that come in as part of the fellowship. They’re asked to donate a piece to the museum that represents their time here. So we have, over the years, from ‘83 to now, amassed what I find to be a particularly amazing collection, if not necessarily—I mean, there obviously are some wonderful highlight pieces, but I also think as a whole the collection really speaks to trends that are happening in the studio glass movement, so you can kind of see what colors were popular, what techniques were popular at different times as you go through it, as well as you can see some experimentation, which, as a museum leaves us with these sort of interesting concepts of—we have pieces that no longer hold what I would consider the artist’s vision because, for example, the ‘archival’ adhesive they used has yellowed, so it’s in—from a museum point of view, in terms of putting on display, it doesn’t really follow the artist’s original vision. But I also find it a very interesting piece to maintain in a collection because then it speaks to people working with the medium, new techniques that were being developed, like what kind of adhesives, what kind of silicones, what did you do before Hxtal was around? As they’re exploring this medium and where they can push it and where they can take it, so while a piece like that might never go on display I think it’s good from a research point of view, again, to show these kind of trends, or to show what kind of materials were being combined with the glass at different times. And also what worked and what didn’t work. So now we know that that adhesive turns yellow. So, if you don’t want it to turn yellow, maybe you shouldn’t use it. But if you do, here’s this interesting adhesive that can change the color of your piece over time.