Kate Vogel and John Littleton talk about Harvey Littleton bringing glass to  universities. Oral history interview with Kate Vogel and John Littleton by Barb Elam and Caleb Weintraub-Weissman, conducted via telephone, December 12, 2019, Bard Graduate Center. Clip length: 02:53.

John Littleton (JL): Well, I think it was just that, in the beginning, Dad [Harvey Littleton] was so excited about actually being able to blow glass, and at the time he felt that it was a material for artists, as in, the action painting—that working with the glass, he felt like it was really important that the artist-designer handle the material itself. And so as he gained skill and the students gained skill, they all brought it back to each other so that they could improve together. There had been other artists working with glass in their own private studios, and there were certainly people in the industry that knew how to blow glass, but they didn’t share it. And that was—to me, that was the biggest difference. I think early on, maybe the second or so year that dad was blowing glass, he went off and did over thirty lectures or talks at university ceramic studios to introduce the idea. He knew that you had to get more people involved for it to grow. 

Kate Vogel (KV): When you look at—I mean, when I think about Harvey’s contribution, it wasn’t that there weren’t people who had ever worked with glass before, but it was that he brought it to university level and that he shared it openly across the board and got so many people involved. And I think that’s really the difference. I mean, if you look at people like Edris Eckhardt, who made incredible work, but she wasn’t out teaching and selling it—the concept of using it as an artistic material to other people. Or, I mean, there’s so many people in the field that you could look at that. I mean, even Dominick Labino who ended up being a champion of glass in the end, in the beginning, was very, very reserved about sharing his knowledge from industry. I mean, he had a hot shop set up in his own studio, but he wasn’t going to share the information. And he was involved with the first workshop as in, he came in after they were having all sorts of problems because someone had sent some of the wrong materials for the workshop. A lot of people go, ‘Oh, they didn’t know what they were doing, they were incompetent. They mixed bad formulas.’ That’s why Dominick had to step in. Well, Harvey had been melting formulas in his own studio since the late fifties, and had been doing fine with it. He had made quite a few pieces from it, but really where Dominic stepped in was making it possible for them to complete the workshop because—I can’t remember if it was the lime or something—

JL: There were a couple of materials that were substituted, and it didn’t work.

KV: And then it just wouldn’t melt well. Because if you look at the 475 marbles that Dominic shared with everyone, if you’re talking about a glassblowing material, it’s terrible; [JL laughs] It’s really horrible. But what it was, it was something that was readily accessible and really easy to use. But before that time, Dominick had not really been willing. I mean, he shared privately with Harvey some, but he did not share and did not teach in the early days.