Skip to main content Smithsonian Institution

Catalog Data

Interviewee:
Patti, Tom  Search this
Interviewer:
Warmus, William, 1953-  Search this
Creator:
Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America  Search this
Names:
Corning Museum of Glass.  Search this
General Electric Company  Search this
George Walter Vincent Smith Museum  Search this
Haystack Mountain School of Crafts -- Students  Search this
Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.)  Search this
Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America  Search this
Norman Rockwell Museum at Stockbridge  Search this
Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corporation  Search this
Penland School of Crafts -- Students  Search this
Pratt Institute -- Students  Search this
Sienna Gallery  Search this
Arnheim, Rudolf  Search this
Borowsky, Irvin J.  Search this
Buechner, Thomas S.  Search this
Fuller, R. Buckminster (Richard Buckminster), 1895-1983  Search this
Gund, Ann  Search this
Gund, Graham  Search this
Heller, Doug, 1946-  Search this
Hunter-Stiebel, Penelope, 1946-  Search this
Kostellow, Rowena Reed  Search this
Moholy-Nagy, Sibyl, 1905-  Search this
Parriott, Joseph  Search this
Pelli, Cesar  Search this
Rockwell, Norman, 1894-1978  Search this
Rogers, Malcolm Jennings  Search this
Safdie, Moshe, 1938-  Search this
Wagman, Laurie  Search this
Wood, Art  Search this
Extent:
77 Pages (Transcript)
6 Items (Sound recording: 6 sound files (4 hr., 47 min.), digital, wav)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Pages
Interviews
Sound recordings
Place:
Colombia -- Description and Travel
Europe -- description and travel
Israel -- Description and Travel
Date:
2010 January 18-19
Scope and Contents:
An interview of Tom Patti conducted 2010 January 18 and 19, by William Warmus, for the Archives of American Art's Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America, at Patti's residence, in Miami Beach, Florida.
Patti talks about growing up in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, in a working-class neighborhood, and playing in and around the General Electric Corp. landfill, the major employer in the area; losing vision in one eye after a childhood accident; he recalls running with a tough crowd during high school and making homemade tattoos for his friends; his probation officer during high school, who encouraged his interest in art; meeting Norman Rockwell, who encouraged him to attend Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York; majoring in industrial design at Pratt, where he worked with Rowena Reed Kostellow; the idealism and social consciousness of the 1960s; exposure to the ideas of visionary architects such as Moshe Safdie and Buckminster Fuller; the New York art/social scene in the 1960s, including Max's Kansas City; meeting Marilyn Holtz, whom he later married; a trip to Colombia to discuss shelter development, and exposure to severe poverty; a resulting focus on people-centered shelter ideas; graduate work at Pratt, and the value of his studies in an academic environment; working with inflatable shelters, experimenting with different materials, including using glass; returning to the Berkshires in Massachusetts, working odd jobs, running a small glass school for children; becoming aware of the studio glass movement and attending a glassblowing workshop at Penland School of Crafts in Penland, North Carolina, in 1971; continued work with glass, including Vitrolite and other scavenged materials; growing public recognition in the 1970s; an internship at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Deer Isle, Manie, where he met Steve Feren, with whom he worked for several years; acquisition of work by the Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York, in 1976; first one-man gallery show in 1977; purchase of work by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York; series Solar Riser and the importance of a meditative/spiritual component of his work; setting up a studio in Plainfield, Massachusetts; first museum exhibition at the George Walter Vincent Smith Art Museum in Springfield, Massachusetts; speaking at the World Crafts Council conference in Vienna in the late 1970s; continued travel and recognition in Europe in the 1980s; "Genic Doran Divider-Sentinel," (1982-84), commissioned sculpture for General Electric in Pittsfield, which led to his focus on laminated materials; early 1990s studio expansion to work on a larger scale; commission work with Cesar Pelli for Owens Corning Fiberglas in 1993; one-person show at Serge Lechazynski's gallery in Biot, France; travels in Europe and Israel; serving on the board of the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts; consulting work with the glass and materials industry; "Spectral-Luma Ellipse" (2000); "Spatial Boundary" (2001), commissioned by Ann and Graham Gund; continued smaller-scale work; designing the window for Sienna Gallery in Lenox, Massachusetts, owned by his daughter; recent commissions including "Morton Square" in 2004, the Roosevelt Avenue Intermodal Station (2004), both in New York City, and "Miami Rain" (2009), Miami, Florida; and the importance of transparency, opacity, and translucency in his work. He also recalls Joseph Parriott, Sybil Moholy-Nagy, Rudolf Arnheim, Art Wood, Thomas Buechner, Doug Heller, Penelope Hunter-Stiebel, Laurie Wagman and Irvin Borowsky, and Malcolm Rogers.
Biographical / Historical:
Tom Patti (1943- ) is a glass artist, sculptor, and designer in Pittsfield, Massachusetts and Miami Beach, Florida.
General:
Originally recorded on 6 memory cards. Duration is 4 hr., 47 min.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators.
Topic:
Industrial design  Search this
Designers -- Massachusetts -- Interviews  Search this
Glass artists -- Massachusetts -- Interviews  Search this
Sculptors -- Massachusetts -- Interviews  Search this
Glass art  Search this
Genre/Form:
Interviews
Sound recordings
Identifier:
AAA.patti10
Archival Repository:
Archives of American Art
GUID:
https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw9b3ed58c5-3fb4-4b82-88a3-c6ab7153b737
EDAN-URL:
ead_collection:sova-aaa-patti10