Toots Zynsky discusses the importance of Corning. Oral history interview with Toots Zynsky, March 22, 2018, Bard Graduate Center. Clip length: 02:48.

Toots Zynsky: I think a lot more should be talked about Corning because Corning has been an amazing resource in—at every level. When Mathijs Teunissen Van Manen and I started researching—making a real thread-pulling machine, not just a contraption, that he had made by himself, I called up Bill [Willam] Warmus at Corning [The Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York]. Who I knew just a little bit because I’d been one of the editors of New Work, which is now Glass Quarterly that, you know, originated with—New York Experimental Glass Workshop [New York, New York], Hans Frode and I kind of took it over, and [laughs] started publishing it again. And so I had called Bill to do interviews on certain things. So I had known—I knew him a little bit and I said, ‘Well, you know, maybe Corning [Corning Incorporated], you know, would let us look at fiber optics,’ and—which I knew kind of basics about. And I called up Bill and he said, ‘Okay,’ you know, ‘I’ll work on it. Call you back.’ Called me back within a day. He said, ‘Okay, you’re, you know, we’ve got—we’ve got you the day with one of our chief engineers.’ Boom. So we drove up. I borrowed a car from one of my students [laughs] and we drove up to Corning and they had given us, I think his name is Ed Shlecta [phonetic], for the whole day. I mean, he just showed us everything and then he was curious to show us things that they had just developed and they were looking for artists and creative people to figure out what could be done with this new invention in glass, knew they were working on glass ceramics and photosensitive glass and all of that. And so there was already this interchange going on, and with many artists too, not just me. Corning has always been incredibly generous to the whole field of, you know, glass artists, artists working with glass, with information, materials. I mean, I would call up the library there and say, ‘Virginia, I’m doing some research on pâte de verre for an article.’ And she’d say, ‘Oh, well,’ and I said this, ‘I can’t find anything down here.’ And she said, ‘Oh, well. Give me your address.’ And, you know, within a few days I’d have this envelope like this, and she would’ve photocopied like, all Xeroxed, you know, just this dossier of information on pâte de verre. I mean, they were fantastic like that, and still are.