Mary Shaffer discusses the importance of the Europeans in the studio glass movement. Oral history interview with Mary Shaffer by Catherine Whalen and Barb Elam, conducted via telephone, March 21, 2019, Bard Graduate Center. Clip length: 01:07.

Mary Shaffer: I don’t think that in the early days, we really knew about the European art. I mean, people started going—we knew about Erwin Eisch, of course, and [Harvey] Littleton because together they started the American Glass movement. Littleton wouldn’t have done it on his own. He went to Europe and met Erwin Eisch, and Erwin Eisch’s father owned a glass factory and had a kiln, and anytime artists go to visit Erwin—who is a real artist, he’s a painter and a poet, not just a glassmaker—he would say, ‘Hey, do you want to play in the kiln?’ And so he and Littleton would say, ‘Wouldn’t this be a great idea to have individual kilns that artists could play in?’ And that’s how it really happened. And Harvey told me the same thing that it would not have happened without Erwin. You know, so they both told me the same stuff, but I don’t think we knew the Europeans then. Dale started going to Italy and people started going to Italy to improve their glassblowing skills. To Venice.