Kristin Qualls talks about the origins of the Millville Rose. Oral history interview with Kristin Qualls by Catherine Whalen and Barb Elam, July 26, 2019, Wheaton Arts and Cultural Center. Clip length: 01:50.

Kristin Qualls: The Millville Rose comes from Millville. So Ralph Barber who was most well-known within the glassblowing world as [an] excellent x-ray tube maker, so again, this is an example of that factory worker who’s brought up through the apprentice system and learns from the factory from making these utilitarian items and then on his off time creates this paperweight motif. He was also a rose gardener. So it was—for him, I can imagine it was he loves roses, can I make a rose paperweight, and develops this crimp that allows you to blossom the rose as you’re rounding out the paperweight. And there are stories about again that being a secretive technique—arguments between him and Emil Larson about who came up with the technique. And I know I’ve heard stories that Tony DePalma, who is our king of the Millville Rose—he would lock down the Wheaton studio. So Tony had sort of been handed—it was almost like ‘the handed down to certain mentor protege’—hand down how this happens. Tony DePalma hands it down to Don Friel who’s the one who makes our Millville Roses now. And so certain people again in this insular community kind of pick it up if they show interest that sort of it’s happening so if you make yourself present and that you want to learn this and you get the trust you eventually learn and then—I mean, I think education changed how things—how people learn information changed, and it stopped being so secretive. Because now I think my instinct is that people understand you have to have a skill set in order to make a beautiful Millville Rose so you can show anyone in the world you want about how to make a Millville Rose, there’s still only going to be a handful of people who are going to be able to make it well.