Richard Yelle discusses RISD as a great “incubator” of talent. Oral history interview with Richard Yelle by Barb Elam, conducted via telephone, December 17, 2019, Bard Graduate Center. Clip length: 01:15.

Richard Yelle: ‘74 to ’76, I was at RISD [Rhode Island School of Design]. Glass is in the sculpture department at RISD, so that was—glass ceramics and pure sculpture. But I found glass particularly exciting. And I had just come from MassArt [Massachusetts College of Art and Design] where I had studied painting and ceramics. And then we built that, the first glass studio at MassArt, and Dan Dailey was hired as the first glass professor ever [laughs] at MassArt. And so I went straight from MassArt to RISD and then straight from there to New York. But I would like to mention at RISD it was a particularly interesting time, cause as I mentioned already, Jamie [James Carpenter] was there, Mary Shaffer was there, Toots [Zynsky] was there. Bruce Chao, who eventually became the head of the RISD glass program. And of course, Dale [Chihuly], and there’s many other people. So it was quite an incubator at that time.