Paul Stankard discusses giving a flameworking demo at Wheaton Village prior to his Penland workshop. Oral history interview with Paul Stankard by Barb Elam, conducted via telephone, August 22, 2019, Bard Graduate Center. Clip length: 01:24.

Paul Stankard: I had never really taught at that level. I had demonstrated and I gave lectures, but I never had a workshop, never gave a workshop. So then I thought, ‘Well, let’s—’ somehow, I had an opportunity to give a demo at Wheaton’s, which I’ve done many many times now. So that helped me organize things, and they—it was an interesting revelation for me, because the flamework—the paperweight making was very very secretive. I wasn’t going around promoting my techniques, because they were personal and blah blah. But once I accepted the invitation to give this workshop at Penland, I decided I would have no secrets. And that was a very important decision, because it freed me up from any—’This is my technique and I better not show it or they’ll copy me.’ So it really gave me a lot of emotional freedom to share, and by sharing I won over the people who were curious and they—you know, you get into a dialogue of different techniques and you learn when you share information, it’s not a one-way street. It’s a conversation that kind of blends a lot of information into an interesting point of view.