Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Flora Mace, 2005 August 17-18. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Joey Kirkpatrick, 2005 August 17-18. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Pilchuck Glass Center (Stanwood, Wash.) Search this
Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America Search this
Type:
Sound recordings
Interviews
Citation:
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Ginny Ruffner, 2006 September 13-14. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America Search this
Pilchuck Glass Center (Stanwood, Wash.) Search this
San Carlos Borromeo Basilica (Carmel, Calif.) Search this
Type:
Interviews
Sound recordings
Place:
British Isles -- Description and travel
Citation:
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with William Morris, 2009 July 13-14. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
An interview of William Morris conducted 2009 July 13-14, by Mija Riedel, for the Archives of American Art's Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America, at Morris' home, in Stanwood, Washington.
William Morris (1957- ) is a glass artist in Stanwood, Washington.
General:
Originally recorded on 3 sound discs. Reformatted in 2010 as 7 digital wav files. Duration is 5 hr., 5 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.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
An interview of Ginny Ruffner conducted 2006 September 13-14, by Mija Riedel, for the Archives of American Art's Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America, at the artist's home and studio, in Seattle, Washington.
Ruffner speaks of her new outdoor sculpture piece, "The Urban Garden," in Seattle, Washington; receiving her B.F.A. and M.F.A. in painting and drawing at the University of Georgia; developing an interest in glass after seeing Marcel Duchamp's, "The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors, Even (Large Glass)"; spending five years learning lampworking as an apprentice/employee; teaching experiences at Pilchuck School of Glass; moving to Seattle, Washington from Atlanta, Georgia; reading as a strong influence; the significance of language and words; an interest in mathematic theories, particle physics, and cosmology; various series of artwork including Beauty, Aesthetic Engineering, Balance, and Patterns of Thought; plans for her three-part pop-up book about creativity, imagination, and wonder; travels to Japan, Italy, Australia, Thailand, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Ireland, and France; universal and subjective concepts of beauty; her recovery from the accident she suffered in 1991; a change of perception following the accident; her dislike of labeling art as whimsical; the transformative effects of experiencing installation pieces; and exhibition and installation plans for the future. Ruffner also recalls Flora Mace, Joey Kirkpatrick, Deborah Dohne, Fred Tschida, Maurine Littleton, Tom Robbins, Alvy Ray Smith, George C. Scott, Mark Leach, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Ginny Ruffner (1952- ) is a glass artist from Seattle, Washington. Mija Riedel (1958- ) is a curator and writer, from San Francisco, California.
General:
Originally recorded on 3 sound discs. Reformatted in 2010 as 10 digital wav files. Duration is 3 hr.
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.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
An interview of Flora Mace conducted 2005 August 17-18, by Lloyd E. Herman, for the Archives of American Art's Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America, at the artist's home and studio, which she shares with Joey Kirkpatrick, in Seattle, Washington.
Ms. Mace discusses growing up in New Hampshire, in a house that her family had lived in for generations; various family businesses, including clam-shucking; how her mother suffered from depression throughout her childhood; her grandparents, who played a large role in her upbringing; joining the 4-H and becoming a skilled shepherd; her family's hunting, fishing, and gathering, on which they survived during her childhood; the various art projects she did with her mother and grandmother, including making wreaths for friends and relatives; building tree houses out of scrap wood; trapping animals and making their pelts into clothes for her dolls; saving up her money from after school jobs and the 4-H competitions to buy tools; getting a scholarship from her grandmother's old employer to go to college; attending Plymouth State; her involvement in college athletics, including field hockey, skiing, and softball; early artistic influences, especially Alexander Calder; traveling to Norway on the International Farm Youth Exchange; attending the University of Illinois for graduate school and being their sculpture technician; attending a summer workshop at the University of Utah with Dale Chihuly; being invited by Chihuly to go to Pilchuck Glass School to continue her work; becoming an artist-in-residence at Wheaton Glass Village; having her first show at the Contemporary Glass Gallery (later the Heller Gallery) in New York; the growth of the studio glass movement in the late 1970s; and finally going to Pilchuck Glass School for the first time in 1979, where she met Joey Kirkpatrick. The continuation of Mace's story, and her lifelong collaboration with Kirkpatrick, is discussed in a joint interview of Kirkpatrick and Mace. Mace also recalls Bill Morris, Ben Moore, Audrey Handler, Paul Stankard, Mary and Frank Wheaton, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Flora Mace (1949- ) is a glass artist from Seattle, Washington. Lloyd E. Herman (1936- ) is a curator and former director of the Smithsonian's American Art Museum's Renwick Gallery and currently lives in Seattle, Washington.
General:
Originally recorded on 3 sound discs. Reformatted in 2010 as 6 digital wav files. Duration is 3 hrs., 25 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.
An interview of Joey Kirkpatrick conducted 2005 August 17-18, by Lloyd E. Herman, for the Archives of American Art's Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America, at the artist's home and studio, which she shares with Flora Mace, in Seattle, Washington.
Joey Kirkpatrick (1952- ) is a glass artist from Seattle, Washington. Lloyd E. Herman (1936- ) is a curator and former director of the Smithsonian American Art Museum's Renwick Gallery of Art and is currently from Seattle, Washington.
General:
Originally recorded on 2 sound discs. Reformatted in 2010 as 2 digital wav files. Duration is 2 hr., 2 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.
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Flora Mace and Joey Kirkpatrick, 2005 August 17-18. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
An interview of Flora Mace and Joey Kirkpatrick conducted 2005 August 17-18, by Lloyd E. Herman, for the Archives of American Art's Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America, at the artists' home and studio, in Seattle, Washington.
They discuss their first meeting at Pilchuck Glass School in Stanwood, Washington, in 1979; the structure of classes and teaching philosophies at Pilchuck in the late '70s and early '80s; the change in equipment and the growth of the Pilchuck campus through the years; their first projects together, which were wire drawings made by Flora and based on Joey's sketches; leaving Pilchuck after the summer session and moving together to Waterville, New Hampshire, where they worked in a studio at the Rhode Island School of Design with Dale Chihuly; building up a body of work and then having to decide whose work it was, at a time when collaborating and co-signing was not standard practice; going back to Pilchuck every summer for 14 years after first meeting there in 1979; beginning to teach as a collaborative team at Pilchuck in 1981, the first women to teach glass blowing at that school; building their house together on the grounds of Pilchuck, a design which was then emulated for dormitories at the school; convincing Dale Chihuly to lower the class size at Pilchuck to 10, down from 20, to allow teachers to work more closely with the students; early shows of their work at Habatat Galleries in Royal Oak, Michigan, Ivor Kurland Gallery in Los Angeles, California, and Foster-White Galleries in Seattle, Washington; the support of their sisters and families throughout the years, mostly in providing them a place to stay as they traveled cross country; their relationships with collectors; what each artist brings to the partnership, including vision, inspiration, and technique; the influence of water on their work, as both artists are drawn to the sea and the tides; the purpose of their work, and what they feel it can bring to the viewer; the challenge given to the artists by Joan Borenstein to make 30 glass goblets, all with different fruits and vegetables; having their work cast at the Walla Walla Foundry; and the ideas behind various bodies of work, including the "Bird Pages" and the large latticino fruit. A more in-depth discussion of each artist's childhood, education, and artistic experiences prior to their meeting at Pilchuck can be found in the individual artist's interviews. They recall Italo Scanga, Bill Morris, Ben Moore, Rich Royal, Howard Ben Tre, Toots Zynsky, Therman Statom, Harvey Littleton, Lino Tagliapetra, Chris Wilmarth, Judy Pfaff, Lynda Benglis, Alice Rooney, Bertil Vallien, Ann Wolff, Betsy Rosenfield, George and Dorothy Saxe, Doug and Dale Anderson, Jon and Mary Shirley, Sarah and Bill Dehoff, Francine and Benson Pilloff, George Stroemple, Ann Welch, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Joey Kirkpatrick (1952- ) and Flora Mace (1949- ) are glass artists from Seattle, Washington. Lloyd E. Herman (1936- ) is a curator and former director of the Smithsonian American Art Museum's Renwick Gallery of Art and is currently from Seattle, Washington. Mace and Kirkpatrick have been working collaboratively on glass since the late 1970s.
General:
Originally recorded on 3 sound discs. Reformatted in 2010 as 5 digital wav files. Duration is 3 hrs., 17 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.
This collection is open for research. Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center.
Researchers interested in accessing audiovisual recordings in this collection must use access copies. Contact References Services for more information.
Collection Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Collection Citation:
Italo Scanga papers, circa 1930-2001. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
