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.
Pilchuck Glass Center (Stanwood, Wash.) Search this
Art Collectors: A Project in Partnership with the Center for the History of Collecting in America at The Frick Collection Search this
Type:
Sound recordings
Interviews
Citation:
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Jon Shirley, 2018 August 7-8. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
An interview with Jon Shirley conducted 2018 August 7-8, by Mija Riedel, for the Archives of American Art and the Center for the History of Collecting in America at the Frick Art Reference Library of The Frick Collection, at Shirley's home in Medina, Washington.
Mr. Shirley recalls hiring architect George Suyama to design a 23,000-square-foot home to house the art collection Shirley was assembling with his wife, Mary; growing up in Honolulu, Philadelphia, and Puerto Rico as his father was in the military; an influential humanities class at the Hill School; discovering Alexander Calder while still in high school; studying at MIT; his 25-year tenure with Radio Shack and Tandy International Electronics stores; a five-year period in Brussels that expanded his knowledge of art; his and Mary's move to Seattle and subsequent engagement with art glass and Pilchuck; becoming president of Microsoft and taking the company public; the evolution of his Alexander Calder collection to 40+ works (what has been called the best privately held Calder collection in the U.S.); his 30+ year friendship with Chuck Close, collecting more than 30 of his works, and financing "The Portrait Speaks;" his long-term engagement with the Seattle Art Museum and in particular the founding and endowing of the Olympic Sculpture Park; Mary's death in 2013 and Shirley's subsequent remarriage to Kim Richter; and endeavoring to restore Calder's only posthumously made work, "Mountain and Clouds," in the Hart Senate Office Building. Shirley also recalls working with Robert Mnuchin, Anthony Grant, Sandy Rower, Tobias Meyer, Robert Storr, Patterson Sims, Arne Glimcher, Jinny Wright, Barney Ebsworth and the Pace Gallery; acquiring works by Magdalena Abakanowicz, Jesús Moroles, Marino Marini, Mark Rothko, Gerhard Richter, Mark di Suvero, Claes Oldenburg, David Smith, Joan Mitchell, Korean Dansaekhwa artists, Constantin Brancusi ("Bird in Space") and Alberto Giacometti ("Dog"); and building a collection of 350+ works of sculpture and post-WWI paintings.
Biographical / Historical:
Jon Shirley (1938- ) is a retired president, chief operating officer, and director of the Microsoft corporation, and a collector of Modern art, in Medina, Washington. Mija Riedel (1958- ) is a writer and editor in San Francisco, California.
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:
The transcript and recording are open for research. Contact Reference Services for more information.
