John Littleton and Kate Vogel explain Harvey Littleton’s “technique is cheap” quote. 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: 00:58.

John Littleton: Well, I think the—Dad [Harvey Littleton] brought that into glass from the pottery field, and [clears throat] at some point, I think he rejected it, along with the idea that technique was cheap. You could go and find out how to do most anything. It was really your ideas and how—the artwork that you produced that became most important to him. So I think that his ideas had changed a little bit on that, at least from my point of view on it. 

Kate Vogel: I think there are—at the same time that his ideas may have changed, as far as—I think people oftentimes get the ‘technique is cheap’ a little bit backwards, in that they think that Harvey didn’t think that it was important to have any skills, and I don’t think that was at all about that. I think for him it was really, the ideas have to come first, because you’re going to have all the skills you want in the world, but if you don’t have any ideas that doesn’t get you anywhere.