Susie Silbert discusses women in studio glass. Oral history interview with Susie Silbert by Catherine Whalen, February 25, 2020, Bard Graduate Center. Clip length: 01:18.

Susie Silbert: I think a lot of inquiry into the ways that women have taken part in studio glass stop short of really inquiring at this kind of question. I think my received knowledge on this was that there weren’t that many women involved, and even when I was a student in glass in the early 2000s, it felt—even though there’s a lot of women in the class, it still felt like a pretty masculine space. But I had this incredible moment in an archive, which is my favorite place to have incredible moments, and I found this handmade book at—in the archive of the Penland School of Crafts [Penland School of Craft, Bakersville, North Carolina] that Harvey Littleton’s children had donated there from 1965 when they’re building—I think 1965—when they’re building the first hotshop. And who is building the first hotshop, all of these women in their long skirts, and their cardigans are constructing, working with firebrick, constructing this—a space for working. So I think that there’s a lot about the role of women in glass that we still have to learn beyond the few that get talked about a lot, but probably not as much as they should be, like Audrey Handler and Sylvia Vigiletti who were there right at the beginning.