Bob Banford and Gay LeCleire Taylor talk about Paul Stankard, discussing his history-making paperweights, his imitation of nature, and the evolution of his work. Oral history interview with Bob Banford by Barb Elam, conducted via telephone, December 19, 2019, Bard Graduate Center. Oral history interview with Gay LeCleire Taylor by Barb Elam, conducted via telephone, March 9, 2018, Bard Graduate Center. Clip length: 01:00.

Time stamp: 00:00
Clip 1: Bob Banford discusses Paul Stankard’s career as a paperweight artist in relation to his own. Clip length: 00:13.

Bob Banford: Paul Stankard had a couple of year headstart on me in South Jersey. He lived, I don’t know, 30, maybe 30 miles away from where I lived. And I’ve known him almost since he’s, he started as well.

Time stamp: 00:16
Clip 2: Bob Banford discusses Paul Stankard and the Blaschka Brothers’ glass flowers. Clip length: 00:22.

Bob Banford: Paul Stankard tried to copy nature. That was his thing. So he copied nature and tried to make things that way and he was, I think, influenced by the Harvard flowers, the glass flowers that were made by the Blaschka Brothers—that are on display at Harvard. He was influenced by them.

Time stamp: 00:40
Clip 3: Gay LeCleire Taylor talks about Paul Stankard. Clip length: 00:19.

Gay LeCleire Taylor: Paul was really working on compound things, much earlier than other people were doing, when he was doing those two layers, or root people or whatever, those multiple layers of things that he was trying to do and break through on that, in his Botanicals especially.