THE AMERICAN STUDIO MOVEMENT: A REGIONAL STUDY OF ITS BIRTH IN NORTHWEST OHIO

Kaysie Harrington

A Thesis

Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

December 2018

Committee:

Douglas Forsyth, Committee Chair

Katerina Ray © 2018

Kaysie Harrington

All Rights Reserved iii ABSTRACT

Douglas Forsyth, Committee Chair

In 1962 the hosted the first workshop. For the first time, artists were able to experiment with glass as an artistic medium outside of the factory setting. This thesis investigates how the Studio Glass Movement began and grew within Toledo and the greater Northwest, Ohio area, with a focus on the social networks which made its formation possible. It argues that the Studio Glass Movement’s success was a product of cooperation between Toledo’s glass industry, educational organizations, community clubs and the artists themselves. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This project would not have been possible without the support of BGSU’s History Department faculty, especially my Committee Chair, Dr. Douglas Forsyth, whose enthusiasm for this topic and continual direction kept me motivated throughout my research. Thank you to Dr. Katerina Ruedi Ray, for offering insightful commentary and suggestions in the final stages of my writing, and to Dr. Steven Seubert, for first introducing me to studio glass as a potential research topic. I also extend my gratitude towards the knowledgeable and helpful staff of the Rakow Research Library. A special thank you to Alli Hoag, who allowed me to join her introductory course and who gave me the opportunity to explore the captivating medium of glass myself. I now have a profound appreciation for the immense talent, dedication and imagination glass artists possess. Thank you to artists Harry Boyer and Jack Schmidt, who were kind enough to recount their personal experiences within the Studio Glass Movement and give me fascinating tours of their own studios. In addition, I would like to thank the family and friends who offered their constant support throughout this entire process, especially my father, who offered steady encouragement and perspective, and my mother, who made my research trip to Corning, New York a memorable adventure. Finally, a sincere and heartfelt thank you to the Penzinski family, whose generosity allowed me to continue my research from the Toledo area, and particularly, to Kyle Penzinski, who had unwavering faith in my ability to succeed. v

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………...……...... 1

CHAPTER I. INDUSTRY………………………………………….……………………… 6

CHAPTER II. EDUCATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS………………………………..…... 30

CHAPTER III. ARTISTS, COLLECTORS AND GALLERIES…….……………………. 52

CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………………………… 69

BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………………………… 74 vi

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure Page

1 Punch Bowl, Libbey Glass Company, ca. 1900 ...... 9

2 dress displayed at the 1892 Columbian Expedition ...... 11

3 Kit Paulson wearing Armor, 2012...... 12

4 Harvey K. Littleton, Implosion/Explosion, 1964 ...... 38

5 , Emergence XII, 1972 ...... 55 1

INTRODUCTION In 2012, Toledo, Ohio hosted the 42nd annual Society conference. Though annual conferences had been a regular part of the organization’s programming since 1971, the

Toledo conference marked a special occasion—glass artists and enthusiasts from around the world gathered to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Studio Glass Movement’s birth in the city.1 In 1962, a workshop hosted on the Toledo Museum of Art’s grounds proved for the first time that an individual artist could blow glass separate from the glass industry. Toledo’s success launched an international interest in glass as an art medium, one which continues to grow in global popularity today and which has also produced such internationally recognized artists as

Dale Chihuly and . According to 2012 Glass Art Society President Jeremy

Lepisto, the first glass workshop was “an idea in the right place.”2

Although the East and West Coasts are now widely considered the glass hubs of the

United States, many artists began or continued their careers in the Toledo area following the first glass workshop. In fact, the city continued to be recognized an innovative glass art center well into the second half of the twentieth-century. This thesis investigates the early success of studio glass in Toledo and explores what qualities made the city the “right” place for studio glass to both emerge and thrive.

Other literature addressing the Studio Glass Movement remains scarce, and largely focused on defining the evolution of glass as a medium within the world of . Art journal publications such as the Glass Art Society Journal and the Corning Museum’s New Glass Review tend to function as surveys of emerging artists and the evolution of glass in the contemporary art

1 Idea, Impact Innovation, the Glass Art Society’s 42nd Annual Conference Brochure (2012). 2 Jeremy Lepisto. “From the GAS President: Hello, Toledo!” Idea, Impact Innovation, the Glass Art Society’s 42nd Annual Conference Brochure (2012) 5. 2 world. More comprehensive works such as March Drexler Lynn’s American Studio Glass: 1960-

1990, focus specifically on glass’ evolution from a medium to a high-art form, accepted by serious art collectors. Lynn argues that there were three specific developments that positively influenced the art world into accepting glass as fine art: the increased production of American studio glass, increasingly loose standards of what materials qualified as “art,” and finally, the integration of functional forms into the high-art world.3 Lynn’s fellow glass historian William

Warmus also uses his research to place glass in the context of larger trends in the art world. His work, Fire and Form thematically explores the pieces of well-known contemporary glass artists in their use of abstraction, color and glass as a spiritual representation of both human and other biological forms.4 Habatat Gallery owner Ferdinand Hampson has also contributed his retrospective, Studio Glass in America: A 50 Year Journey, to the field. By surveying the work of premier glass artists throughout the world, Hampson’s work offers a decade by decade overview of glass art’s major developments.5 In contrast, Joan Falconer Byrd’s Harvey K.

Littleton, A Life in Glass focuses solely on the career of one pioneering glass artist. Her work functions primarily as a biography of Harvey K. Littleton, a ceramicist turned glass artist who is often credited with founding the Movement.6

Outside of the scholarship listed above, which provides a predominantly broad, international approach, little critical discourse exists which examines the Studio Glass

Movement’s early history. Thus, the opportunity exists for this thesis to contribute an original, more targeted line of research to the field, by addressing studio glass in the greater Toledo area

3 Martha Drexler-Lynn, American Studio Glass: 1960-1990 (New York: Hudson Hills Press, 2004) 1. 4 William Warmus, Fire and Form: The Art of Contemporary Glass (, WA: University of Press, 2003). 5 Ferdinand Hampson, Studio Glass in America: A 50 Year Journey (Atglen, Pennsylvania: Schiffer Punishing Ltd., 2012). 6 Joan Falconer Byrd, Harvey K. Littleton, A Life in Glass (New York: Skira Rizzoli Publications Inc., 2011). 3 specifically. It finds that the Studio Glass Movement took shape in Toledo at the confluence of several different communities. By isolating these various community groups into separate chapters, a thorough investigation of the complex social networks which aided in establishing studio glass is made possible. The first chapter addresses Toledo’s glass industry, specifically those firms which acted as good corporate citizens in their continual commitment to promoting innovation in glass. The second chapter explores the area’s educational institutions.

Collaborative efforts made by the Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo University and Bowling Green

State University helped establish quality glassblowing facilities and programming within the region. The final chapter addresses the contributions made by talented local artists as well as the collectors, art clubs and galleries who coordinated with them to sell and exhibit studio glass in the region.

This framework is based on economic historian Douglas North’s theory that progress is a product of cooperation. In his 1990 work, Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic

Performance, North argues that competition is not the only driver of economic progress. Rather, studying the circumstances under which people cooperate to innovate can provide valuable insight into economic change. North recognizes that social norms and networks, or what he refers to as “institutions,” shape the way humans interact. They have the ability to either help or hinder progress, and thus function as “rules of the game” for a society.7 By exploring Toledo’s social networks, this thesis attempts to reconstruct “the rules of the game” that structured cooperation in the region as the Studio Glass Movement emerged in the region.

To do so, this work also relies upon the theory of social capital, as conceptualized by

Robert D. Putnam in his book, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of the American

7 Douglas North, Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990) 3. 4

Economy. An investigation of declining civic engagement during the late twentieth century,

Bowling Alone connects decreasing rates of social capital with diminished political, religious and workplace participation in communities across the United States. Putnam offers several explanations for this decline, including increased pressures of time and money, suburbanization, and most importantly, generational change.8 Social capital is defined as “connections among individuals—social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them.”9 Putnam argues that high-rates of social capital are beneficial to both individuals and their communities, as strong social networks can lead to greater productivity and success. For the purposes of this thesis, Putnam’s social capital theory will be used to explore how high-rates of social capital were established and maintained between Toledo glassblowers and the members of local corporations, educational organizations, and art groups who helped promote studio glass.

Finally, Richard Florida’s theory of the “creative class” is also utilized alongside Enrico

Moretti’s, New Geography of Jobs. Richard Florida’s argument that a new “creative class” would be the key to regional economies’ future prosperity was met both with wide criticism and acclaim. In his works Rise of the Creative Class and Rise of the Creative Class Revisited, Florida posits that in the rapidly transforming twenty-first century, where new, innovative technologies and creative industries have become increasingly valued, regions can no longer rely upon raw materials or geographical advantages for economic growth. Instead, they should focus their efforts on attracting and retaining community members who can grow creative industries. These individuals are those whom Florida describes as the new “Creative Class.” He defines its

8 Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000) 283. 9 Ibid., 19. 5 members as people who “engage in work whose function it is to ‘create meaningful new forms.’”10

Part of Florida’s theory rests upon the notion that creative people like to work and live among other creative people. Enrico Moretti supported this concept in his 2012 work, The New

Geography of Jobs. Outlining what he refers to as “the Great Divergence,” Moretti argues that the wage gap between American cities has never been larger, and this trend is largely dependent on whether a city is home to the “right or “wrong” industries.11 The “right” cities are often those that serve as innovative hubs, and Moretti suggests that talented people continue to cluster in these areas because they become more productive when in close proximity with other creative individuals.12 Florida and Moretti’s work will be used to explore the factors that encouraged creative members of the Toledo community to collaborate in studio glass. While their works were meant as commentaries on current economic trends, they bring to light relevant points about the forces that draw innovative people together to produce original ideas across history— in this case, those innovative individuals who launched an art movement.

10 Richard Florida, Rise of the Creative Class: Revisited (New York: Basic Books, 2011) 38. 11 Enrico Moretti, The New Geography of Jobs (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012) 4. 12 Ibid., See Chapter 4 “Forces of Attraction,” 121-153. 6

CHAPTER I. INDUSTRY Long before Dominick Labino assembled Vitrana or conceived of

Seaforms, Toledo, Ohio was fostering creativity and innovation in glass. Known as the “Glass

Capital of the World,” the city has historically been home to some of the largest and most successful glass manufacturing companies in the world. The “Glass City’s” legacy first began in

1888, when Edward Drummond Libbey was given four acres of Toledo land to save his father’s failing New Glass Company from rising labor and fuel costs and a market flooded by cheaper, lower quality products.13 Previous to Libbey’s move, the Toledo Businessmen’s

Committee had promoted the city as a prime location for glass companies. Natural gas was discovered in the neighboring city of Findlay four years prior and Toledo was hoping to capitalize on the find to attract new industry to the area. The city’s advertisements claimed not only have access to natural gas, but also key components needed for glass manufactures such as sand , lumber, and direct access to the shipping routes provided by the Great Lakes.14

The city of Toledo welcomed Libbey and his workers with open arms and a grand parade.

A band escorted the glassblowers the four miles from the train station to the new factory grounds where a banquet was held that evening.15 The first day of production was dedicated to showing off the skills of the new arrivals. The glassblowers experimented with color and demonstrated their glassblowing abilities by creating decorative pieces such as lampshades.16 One of these workers was Joseph Rosenberger, a talented glassblower born in Alsace-Lorraine. Mr.

Rosenberger began his glass career as a thirteen-year-old apprentice, but soon became “one of

13 Barbara Floyd, The Glass City: Toledo and the Industry That Built It (Ann Arbor: Press, 2015) 20. 14 Floyd, 22-24. 15 Tana Mosier Porter, Toledo Profile: A Sesquicentennial History (Toledo, OH: Buettner Toledo, Inc., 1987) 52-53. 16 Floyd, 26. 7 the greatest glass workers the industry every produced.”17 Throughout his career at Libbey

Glass, he produced a variety of intricate pieces including an eight-compartment glass liquor decanter, multicolor glass bell clappers and a cream and sugar set infused with blown silver.18

These blown glass pieces, produced in Libbey’s off-hand branch, a sector that produced glassware formed only on the blowpipe and manipulated with tools, allowed for glass craftsmen to hone their skills while making beautifully intricate and color enriched pieces. Although other sectors of the company produced more practical wares such as battery jars, soda fountain accessories, and lightbulbs, it was the skilled glassblowers like Mr. Rosenberger that continued to produce high-quality pieces sought after by middle and upper-class Americans.19

Afterhours also presented opportunities for glassblowers to get creative and make pieces unique to their individual tastes and talents with friggers: objects made with the molten glass left over at the end of the day.20 These opportunities glassblowers were given to blow freehand, combined with the talents needed to make complex pieces, indicate that the glassworkers of

Toledo, Ohio were not average industrial workers. “They did not consider themselves manual laborers, but rather skilled artisans, and they were in short supply,” Barbara Floyd points out in her work on the city’s glass industry.21 The dexterity, creative eye, and strength workers like Mr.

Rosenberger possessed were key to a successful glass factory’s ability to produce a variety of high-quality pieces that exemplified the craft. As one Toledo News-Bee article put it, a skilled

17 “The American Flint,” (March 1931) 27, Dominick Labino Collection, Rakow Library . 18 “’Old Timer’ After Blowing Into the World Fair Fame, Gives Way Before Advance of Glass machine Age,” The Toledo News-Bee (July 8, 1936). Accessed in Box 8, Dominick Labino Collection, Rakow Research Library, Corning Museum of Glass. 19 David Whitehouse, Glass a Short History (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Books, 2012) 97-100. For a more thorough overview of the utilitarian products produced in the early years of the Libbey Co. consult Floyd, Chapters 2 and 3. 20 Also called “end-of day” objects or “whimsies” by American glassworkers. See “Frigger” in Glass: A Pocket Dictionary of Terms Commonly used to Describe Glass and Glass Making (Corning, NY: The Corning Museum of Glass, 2003), 39. 21 Floyd, 21. 8 glass craftsman “could blow a delicate cordial glass, and in succeeding breaths, blow a piece weighing as much as 100 pounds.”22 This type of versatility was especially necessary for Libbey

Glass, a company that produced multiple types of glassware.

Quality cut-glass pieces were also a prized product of Toledo’s premier glass manufacturer. Cut-glass pieces were formed from various sized blown blanks and cut by hand on wheels to produce a multitude of intricate and detailed facets, textures and patterns. The late nineteenth century brought with it a new popularity of , and as John Roesel of the

American Cut Glass Association describes, “cut glass became a symbol of leisure, and demand for beautiful glass products spurred intense competition and creativity within the industry.”23

Toledo and the Libbey Co. encouraged their glass blowers, designers and cutters to create original pieces that would put Toledo, Ohio on the map—and they succeeded. The company received awards at the 1893 Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition for its Columbia and

Isabella cut glass patterns. However, artistry that pushed the limits of cut glass was perhaps most evident in the Libbey Glass Co.’s exhibit at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. The company displayed what was arguably the largest piece of cut glass in the world at the time—a punch bowl measuring 24 inches across.24

22 “’Old Timer’”. 23 John C. Roesel, “American Brilliant Cut Glass, 1876-1917,” American Cut Glass Association, accessed September 25, 1028 at http://www.cutglass.org/AboutCutGlass.htm. 24 Carl U. Fauster, “Libbey Cut Glass Exhibit St. Louis World’s Fair 1904,” Journal of Glass Studies 19 (1977), 162. 9

Figure 1: Punch Bowl, Libbey Glass Company (American, 1892-1919), ca. 1900. Toledo Museum of Art.

What began as a 200-pound gather of glass was skillfully roughed, cut and polished into the embellished bowl pictured above in Figure 1. The Libbey Company was awarded the Grand

Prize Gold medal for this piece, but it was only one illustration of Libby’s nationally recognized reputation for producing superior cut glass at the turn of the century. In 1900, an American

Glassware article proclaimed:

The Libbey Glass Company, of Toledo, Ohio, has brought the art of cutting glass to the highest state of perfection. Its fabrications are now world-famous for the depth and richness of their cut designs, their simplicity and complexity of the pattern, purity of color and prismatic brilliancy. Libbey Cut Glass surpasses, in mechanical and artistic qualities, the best works of similar nature produced elsewhere, and it has become the standard of excellence in this difficult branch of art.25

25 Edwin Atlee Barber, American Glassware (Philadelphia: Patterson & White Co., 1900) 95, quoted in Carl U. Fauster, “Libbey Cut Glass Exhibit St. Louis World’s Fair 1904,” Journal of Glass Studies 19 (1977), 168. 10

It is important to note that the world of fine art was, at the turn of the century, preoccupied with escaping the modern world and growing consumer trends through post-impressionistic and symbolic works. Glass, especially glass made in a factory for consumer purposes, no matter how ornate or aesthetically pleasing, was not considered fine art. However, Edwin Atlee Barber’s statement is illustrative of how glassmakers perceived themselves as their own brand of artists that embraced innovation and creativity in their medium.

Libbey Company’s display at the 1892 Columbian Exposition in Chicago especially demonstrated the company’s drive to expand the world’s perceptions of glass. Hoping for an exhibit that would spark visitor interest, Libbey along with the help of glassblower Hermann

Hammesfahr, created a display that showcased the newly discovered spun glass process. Thin glass fibers were produced in front of visitors and woven into souvenirs such as neckties and doll-baby gowns.26 Although Libbey’s primary motivation behind these mementos was to promote the Libbey Glass name, the exhibit simultaneously demonstrated the company’s commitment to creativity in exploring the possibilities that glass offered. The most exciting aspect of the glass fiber exhibit was a complete dress made entirely of glass. Pictured below in

Figure 2, the dress was made specifically for actress Georgia Cayvan and displayed in the

Exposition’s Crystal Room. The detailed ruffling in the sleeves and bodice, in combination with the matching bows above the hemline, are indicative of the early efforts made by the Libbey Co. to use glass in expressive and nontraditional ways.

26 Floyd, 32. 11

Figure 2: Glass fiber dress displayed at the 1892 Columbian Expedition. Photograph (1982) Wholly Toledo Virtual Exhibit, University of Toledo Library. Accessed September 20, 2018 at https://www.utoledo.edu/library/virtualexhibitions/wtx/excase3_2.html.

12

Figure 3: Kit Paulson wearing Armor. Photograph by Stephen Paulson (2012). Accessed September 20 2018 at http://urbanglass.org/glass/details/planned-for-five-years-laura-donefers- glass--show-at-corning-gas-was. 13

Interestingly, glass fashion has become a popular part of the studio glass world today. First hosted by Laura Donefer in Toronto in 1989, glass fashion shows have become a celebration of artists’ “imaginations and their material, which they can then parade before an adoring crowd of fellow artists.”27 While Libbey or his glass workers may never have conceived of the whimsical or provocative costumes seen in modern glass fashion, they proved themselves early explorers of the unique potential glass offered—much like today’s artists.

It is no surprise that as the head of Libbey Glass, Edward Drummond Libbey himself was supportive of the beauty and craftsmanship the World Expositions demonstrated in glass, given his own personal love for art. It was this love that inspired arguably the most valuable contribution that would later assist the Studio Glass Movement’s entrance into the art world—the founding of the Toledo Museum of Art. His wife Florence had first piqued his interest in art and inspired Libbey to begin to collecting pieces for himself. Further encouraged by the Toledo Tile

Club, a local group of artists and art enthusiasts, the Toledo Museum of Art on April 18, 1901. The Museum was first housed in two rooms of the Gardner Building in downtown Toledo, but it attracted few visitors and quickly ran out of storage and exhibit space.

A new, neoclassical style building was opened to the public on Monroe Street in 1912, on land the Libbeys also donated, which previously belonged to Florence’s father.28 By 1926 the

Museum had expanded to include an additional seventeen galleries, two auditoriums and a reference library. Hoping to encourage continuing art education for both children and adults,

Libbey and his wife dedicated two million dollars in their will to the creation of two additional

27 Andrew Page, “Gallery: Four-Years-in-the-Making, Laura Donefer’s glass fashion show at Corning GAS raises the Bar,” Glass Quarterly (June 15, 2016) UrbanGlass, accessed September 20, 2018 at hhtp://urbanglass.org. 28 Floyd 36-38. 14 wings, a music hall and a reference library. A one-million dollar endowment fund was also left to maintain the Museum’s dedication to learning.29

While the Toledo Museum of Art’s direct influence on the birth of the Studio Glass

Movement will be explored further in Chapter Two, it is important to note here that it was the owner of Toledo’s industrial Glass Empire who not only created the physical space where studio glass would first be blown, but even more significantly was the one who first began fostering an environment that encouraged they type of educational programming that led to the first studio glass workshops. Libbey was aware that the “human capital” and creativity now promoted by

Florida and Moretti was worth investing in, for both his industry and his city’s success. In addition, it was who donated the first glass pieces to the Museum’s permanent collection in 1913, thereby setting the important precedent that glass objects did have a place in an art museum. It was Libbey’s connection to the glass industry that ultimately established an institution with a dedication to promoting glass.30 This dedication later served as an impetus for the Museum to sponsor the first studio glass workshops in 1962.

Edward Drummond Libbey died in 1925, but the glass industry he founded in Toledo continued to grow, as did the company’s proclivity for promoting glass innovation and a reputation as a good corporate citizen. As the Libbey Glass Company expanded, it focused on manufacturing more utilitarian and easily mass-produced items, rather than handmade decorative glass pieces. One of Libbey’s plant managers, Michael Owens, developed an automatic bottle making machine, which significantly cut manufacturing costs but also significantly decreased the need for skilled, free-hand glassblowers. The Owens machine was so successful that Libbey

29 Porter, 64, 76. 30 Floyd, 36-38 15 helped finance the Owens Bottle Machine Company in 1903, which sought to profit from selling the machines and licensing then to other glass companies. The company eventually shifted its focus to the production of machine blown glass bottles and containers, renaming itself the Owens

Bottle Company. A 1929 merger with the Illinois Glass Company, the largest merger in the industry to date, brought another series of name changes, finally culminating in Owens-Illinois,

Inc. or O-I, as the company is referred to today.31 By the mid-twentieth century the company had become the nation’s largest manufacturer of glass bottles and containers, and a leader in glass research and development.32

The Libbey Company also continued to expand and produce an impressive array of glass products. In 1916, it incorporated another spin-off company called the Libbey-Owens Sheet

Glass Company.33 This new glass firm made profitable use of Irving Colburn’s innovative automatic sheet glass process after purchasing the patents from Colburn’s Machine Glass

Company in 1912.34 Sheet glass was first used primarily to make windows, but the company soon developed new grinding, polishing and laminating processes that allowed them to market their glass for use as windshields in the growing automotive industry. In 1930 the company merged with the Edward Ford Company and became known as the Libbey-Owens-

31 “Owens the Innovator,” Time in a Bottle: A History of Owens-Illinois, Inc. The Canaday Center Online Exhibits, University of Toledo Library. (June 9, 2016) accessed September 21, 2016 at https://www.utoledo.edu/library/canaday/exhibits/oi/OIExhibit/MainPage.htm. 32 Expansion, Ecology and Energy: O-I During the 1950s-70s, “Time in a Bottle: A History of Owens-Illinois, Inc.” The Canaday Center Online Exhibits, University of Toledo Library. (June 9, 2016) accessed September 21, 2016 at https://www.utoledo.edu/library/canaday/exhibits/oi/OIExhibit/MainPage.htm. 33 Floyd, 68. 34 Ibid., 67. 16

Ford Glass Company.35 It became the nation’s largest producer of automobile safety glass and a leading supplier of by the 1970s.36

Part of Owens-Illinois’ early research team was Dominick Labino, one of the key founders of the Studio Glass Movement. From 1934 to 1940 Labino worked in the company’s

Clarion, Pennsylvania plant, where he was responsible for supervising glass batches, furnaces and experimenting with new glass formulas and equipment. After the death of his first wife

Labino moved to Waterville, Ohio, located just outside Toledo, to work as a chief furnace and glass fiber formula designer for Glass Fibers, Inc., which later became Libbey-Owens Ford Glass

Fibers and finally Fiberglass in 1955.37 Early in his glass career with Glass

Fibers, Inc. Labino proved himself to be an irreplaceable asset to the industry. In 1952 he helped develop the first glass from quartz fibers. The president of Glass Fibers, Inc. Randolph H.

Barnard declared Labino’s development as “the most important one in the glass industry since the invention of the automatic bottle blowing machine and equipment for manufacturing flat glass.”38 Mr. Barnard hoped to take advantage of the paper’s high temperature resistance and chemical stability for use in insulation for wires, high-speed, submarines and even atomic artillery.39 These aspirations were in part realized when the NASA space program used Labino quartz fibers to insulate the Apollo mission spacecrafts.40 The development of quartz glass paper was just one of Labino’s many contributions to the glass industry. By the end of his glass career

35 Ibid., 79-80. 36 “The Glass Industry in Toledo Yesterday and Today,” Brochure produced by Owens-Illinois, Libbey-Owens- Ford, Owens-Corning and Johns Manville in cooperation with the Toledo Area Chamber of Commerce (ca. 1970s) Box 23, MS-642, Faculty and Student Folklore Collection, Center for Archival Collections, Bowling Green State University. 37 “Founders of American Studio Glass: Dominick Labino,” Corning Museum of Glass Research (October 21, 2011) accessed September 24, 2018 https://www.cmog.org/article/founders-american-studio-glass-dominick-labino. 38 “Glass Fibers, Inc., Makes Quartz Paper for Insulation at High Temperatures,” Toledo Blade (February 6, 1952) Box 5, Dominick Labino Collection, Rakow Research Library, Corning Museum of Glass. 39 Ibid. 40 “Founders of American Studio Glass: Dominick Labino.” 17 he held sixty patents in the United States, proving himself to be the type of creative personality

Florida and Morelli encourage today’s businesses to attract.

In fact, Labino would most certainly qualify as a member of what Florida describes as the

“Super Creative Core” of the Creative Class. These are scientists, engineers, designers, artists, and other “opinion makers” who actively produce and engage in “new forms or designs that are readily transferable and widely useful—such as designing a consumer product that can be manufactured and sold; coming up with a theorem or strategy that can be applied in many cases, or composing music that can be performed again and again.”41 The “Super Creative Core” are the problem solvers and simultaneously the people who are first aware that a solution is needed.42 Labino certainly embodied this creative force that Florida argues is a key to economic success. By the age of twenty he had already proved himself an inherently innovative and creative mind, having been recognized for having designed and built the world’s smallest electric motor in 1930.43 This creative spirit, and arguably technical and scientific genius, helped grow

Toledo’s glass industry, but it also served as a key component of the Studio Glass Movement’s success.

By the time and Labino collaborated on the first 1962 workshops,

Labino had also already established a presence in not only Toledo’s industrial glass community, but the art community as well. The same 1952 Toledo Blade article celebrating Labino’s successful quartz fiber paper also indicated that he was “well known in art and ceramic circles.”44 This was not surprising, given his involvement in many of the city’s art clubs and

41 Florida, 38. 42 Ibid., 39. 43 “Glass Fibers. Inc., Makes Quartz Paper for insulation at High Temperatures.” 44 Ibid. 18 associations; Labino was president of the Craft Club of Toledo from 1952-53; president of the

Toledo Federation of Art Societies from 1953-55 and charter member and president of the

Maumee Kiwanis Club from 1954-55. 45 In addition to his active role in organizations, Labino was himself an accomplished artist and craftsman. In his home workshops Labino regularly painted with oils and watercolor, and experimented with metal casting, wood and glass .46 Perhaps his most popular pieces were enamel-on-copper beaded jewelry, which he often gifted to friends and glass industry executives. In 1961 the president of Johns Manville,

Clinton B. Burnett, specifically requested one of Labino’s necklaces for his wife. He was so pleased with piece that he wrote Labino a letter within just days of receipt stating “Mrs. B thinks the necklace is terrific and thanks you very much for sending it. Now I would like to know if you could make several more of these necklaces for me for Christmas presents, and if so, give me a price with, of course, a firm mark up to you.”47

Mr. Burnett’s purchase of Labino’s glass enameled necklace demonstrates Labino’s reputation as a fine craftsman prior the advent of the Studio Glass Movement, but it also provides evidence that Labino was already cultivating a small market of support for his work within Toledo’s glass industry, one that would later be interested in purchasing his glass art pieces. Similarly, other Toledo institutions outside the glass industry recognized Labino’s pre- workshop ability to create glass art, such as the Law Offices of Williams, Eversman & Black. In

1960 they commissioned Labino to make “an appropriate work of glass art” for their reception room. In their request letter the office asked Labino to “express abstractly in any manner you deem appropriate your feelings about lawyers, and I promise to display your work for a

45 “Dominick Labino,” Toledo Museum of Art Exhibit Brochure, ca. 1970s. 46 Ibid. 47 Letter from Clinton B. Burnett to Dominick Labino, September 15, 1961. Box 2 of Dominick Labino Collection Rakow Library, Corning Museum of Art. 19 reasonable period.”48 Prior to the start of the Studio Glass Movement, therefore, Toledo demonstrated that it possessed an active, well-connected business community that both fostered creativity and recognized its role in supporting local artists.

In fact, Labino’s early success as a hobby artist, glass industry innovator and organizational leader suggests that in the mid-twentieth century the City of Toledo was a region with a high degree of what American political scientist Robert Putnam describes as “social capital”—the connections individuals share in social networks that develop reciprocity and trustworthiness within a community.49 Social capital can be established in formal settings, such as involvement in civic associations like the art clubs Labino frequented. While high organizational membership can be a good measure of a community’s overall degree of social capital, Putnam also argues that informal connections made between individuals—card playing, barbeques, drinks after work—are also a valuable source of the types of social investments valuable to an individual or group’s success.50 This certainly was the case for ceramicist Harvey

Littleton, when he first sat down to a Wednesday night poker game with Labino.

Harvey Littleton, the artist often credited as being the leading pioneer of the Studio Glass

Movement, also began his relationship with glass in the factory. His father, J.T. Littleton, was a physicist who headed the research and development department at Corning Glassworks in New

York. Born in 1922, before the establishment of modern safety protocols, Harvey was allowed in the factory from the age of six.51 He quickly began establishing a fascination with the material

48 Letter to Dominick Labino from Williams Eversman and Black Law Offices, April 1, 1960. Box 8, Dominick Labino Collection, Rakow Research Library, Corning Museum of Glass. 49 Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000), 19. 50 Ibid. 51 Joan Falconer Byrd, Harvey K. Littleton: A Life in Glass 20 that would follow him throughout his lifetime. In the summer of 1941 Littleton worked at the

Corning Glass Work’s Fall Brook Plant inspecting mold-blown coffee pots, which continued to give him both practical and imaginative insights into glass’ unique strengths and delicacies. In

1942 he used his knowledge of glass molds to cast in glass a neoclassical torso he had modeled in clay. The piece was so successful that his father encouraged him to submit a proposal to

Corning Glass Works, Littleton’s idea being that “there ought to be continuing, ongoing, aesthetic experimentation in the material apart from production.”52 Corning rejected this initial proposal, and a second proposal to the Corning Glass Works Foundation in 1954 was also denied despite Littleton’s claims that “for the artist-glassworker to establish himself as a contributing member in the industry, he must have the support of that industry.” 53

Littleton found the industrial support he was seeking in Toledo, particularly from its top scientist—Vice President and head of Johns Manville Research and Development Dominick

Labino. In the midst of pursuing his MFA from the Cranbrook Academy, Littleton began teaching ceramics courses at the Toledo Museum of Art in 1951. He had already established himself as talented ceramics artist, having displayed his work at the Ceramic National exhibition at the Syracuse Museum of Art in 1950.54 Littleton met Labino at the museum where Labino was taking evening craft classes. The two got to know each other well over Wednesday night poker games, when Littleton would stay in Toledo after teaching his ceramics classes.55 Recognizing the value of Labino’s glass knowledge and simultaneous passion for the arts, it was Labino

52 Harvey K. Littleton, interview, 12 June 1986, I:24 as cited in Joan Falconer Byrd’s, Harvey K. Littleton: A Life in Glass (New York: Skira Rizzoli Publications, 2011), 12. 53 Harvey K. Littleton, Handwritten draft of proposal to the Corning Glass Works Foundation, n.d., Harvey Littleton , Archive of American Art, as cited in Joan Falconer Byrd’s, Harvey K. Littleton: A Life in Glass (New York: Skira Rizzoli Publications, 2011),13. 54 Byrd, 175. 55 Martha Drexler Lynn, American Studio Glass 1960-1990 (New York: Hudson Hills Press, 2004), 53. 21

Littleton turned to for help with the technical aspects of the first workshops when he returned in

1962.

He was happy to help. While Johns Manville was generally supportive of Labino’s innovations and personal hobbies he was quickly tiring of the legal and administrative control that often accompanied his industrial innovations. He recalled that by the time Littleton and the

TMA approached him about the workshops, “I had just had it with industry. I would say to myself, ‘How many years will I have to stay here until I can decide to so something that I don’t have to get approved by fourteen to twenty people?’”56 Likely adding to his frustrations was his involvement in a trade secrets case, less than a year before the workshops. In August of 1961

Johns Manville accused Dolomite Glass Fibers Inc. of luring away two former Johns Manville employees who were in possession of trade secrets. Labino was brought in as a consultant and asked to review relevant patent licensing agreements to “ascertain what trade secrets of Johns

Manville [the employees] might have knowledge of and might supply to Dolomite.”57 Besides restraining Dolomite from using confidential information and placing an injunction on the employees’ ability to reveal trade secrets, John-Manville was also prepared to demand personal damages from the offending employees.58 As a Johns Manville employee himself, with access to an immense amount of industrial and personal patent and trade information, Labino would have been all too conscious of the risks involved with openly dispensing industrial knowledge, even in his own personal ventures. Work on the studio glass workshops offered Labino an opportunity to begin distancing himself from these industrial oversights in an artistic arena that was not a threat

56 Byrd, “A Conversation with Dominick Labino,” Dominick Labino: Glass Retrospective, exhibit catalog Western Carolina University, Cullowhee North Carolina, 1982, 9 as cited in Martha Drexler Lynn, 54. 57 Letter to Dominick Labino from David L. Farley, Jr. referencing the “Dolomite Matter,” (August 18, 1961) Box 2 Dominick Labino Collection, Rakow Research Library, Corning Museum of Glass. 58 Brief from Herbert Morton Ball regarding Johns Manville Fiber Glass Inc. vs. Dolomite Glass Fibers, Inc. (August 24, 1961) Box 2, Dominick Labino Collection, Rakow Research Library, Corning Museum of Glass. 22 to Johns Manville’s own business pursuits. He himself had already begun experimenting with a glass furnace in his home workshop and in 1958 successfully made a paperweight as a retirement gift for a friend. By 1960, Labino effectively melted a glass batch and constructed a blow pipe to use for bottle blowing.59

The first glass workshops were scheduled for Friday, March 23-Sunday, April 1of 1962 on the Toledo Museum of Art’s grounds. It was these workshops that would launch the Studio

Glass Movement and begin a global interest in glass as an art medium. It was also an experimental period where Labino’s knowledge of glass’s chemical properties and formulas was most instrumental to the movement’s eventual success. Norm Shulman, a ceramics instructor and art education supervisor was tasked with arranging the workshops in coordination with Labino, who frequently stopped by the workshops to offer advice and dabble in the glass blowing himself.60 The first few days of the workshops Littleton and his students dedicated to experimenting with melting small batches of glass in the crucibles of Littleton’s pot furnace, but they achieved limited success. The first batches were not a workable consistency; they hardened too quickly to blow, and the crucibles were prone to breaking in high heat. However, as Tom

McGlauchlin, one of Harvey’s students, noted “Nick [Labino] came in and told us the substitutions were the problem so we mixed up new batches and they worked. We’ve been fooling around with the glass all day and night.” 61

To solve Littleton’s crucible problem, Labino also advised that he reconstruct the furnace. In a letter Labino later wrote to a Glass Art Magazine editor about his contributions to the movement, he recalled that Littleton’s initial furnace design “was constructed for shallow,

59 Lynn, 54. 60 Byrd, 40. 61 Tom McGlauchlin, transcript, letter to Pat McGlauchlin, March 23-26 1962, Tom McGlauchlin Personal Papers as cited in Byrd, 40. 23 dish-shaped bowls (which he called pots), perhaps good for salads, but not for making glass. At my suggestion the furnace was rebuilt, with a hard brick liner much the same as that in universal use to-day.”62 This liner was able to withstand the higher temperatures of melted glass and additionally allowed for Littleton’s pot furnace to be converted into a tank format per Labino’s suggestion. The letter also indicated that Littleton’s side firing furnace design “created a blast which made working at the furnace very uncomfortable, and with poor fuel efficiency as well.

Later he changed to top-firing (also at my suggestion), which I had used long before the 1962

Workshop.”63 Although Labino’s top burning furnace was not utilized in the 1962 workshops, these suggestions to Littleton became the standard format later used by many early Studio Glass

Movement artists.64

Yet, perhaps the most enduring contribution Labino made to the studio movement was not the furnace design, but rather the glass formula itself. Despite efforts to adjust their own batch formulas per Labino’s suggestions, the first few glass batches often remained difficult to manipulate and heat. Littleton reported that on Tuesday afternoon, after seeing the results of melting “what looked like a batch of golf balls in a nasty-looking liquid,” Labino donated some of his number 475 borosilicate marbles to the workshop.65 Labino had developed the 475 marbles at Johns Manville in 1961 as part Technical Project 004-2, which was designed to investigate “the production of a High Efficiency Low Melting Point Glass as a possible

Substitute for Standard ‘E’ Glass.”66 The patent for 475 glass marbles was issued to Labino and

62 Letter from Dominick Labino to Glass Art Magazine Editor (May 4. 1976) Box 8, Dominick Labino Collection, Rakow Library, Corning Museum of Art. 63 Ibid. 64 Jack Schmidt, “Thoughts about the 62’ Furnace,” The Toledo Workshops Revisited. Accessed September 20, 2018 at www.toledoworkshop.org. In 2012 the Robert M. Minkoff Foundation, Ltd. and the TMA sponsored three artist residents to recreate and use a furnace molded after the Littleton-Labino model used in the 1962 workshops. 65 Harvey K. Littleton, “Littleton Remembers…,” Glass Art, 4, no. 1 (1976) 24, as cited in Byrd, 41. 66 Report No. TEX-5, Johns Manville Technical Department (March 6. 1961) Box 7, Dominick Labino Collection, Rakow Research Library, Corning Museum of Glass. 24

Johns Manville on April 16, 1963, almost a year after the workshops were completed.67

Therefore, the company freely exposed a commercially valuable product when Labino offered the marbles to Littleton. This show of industrial cooperation ended up being a ground-breaking development for Littleton and his students. The low-melting point of Labino’s glass marbles allowed the workshop’s participants to prepare easily a workable glass mixture in their small furnace. After melting the first one-hundred-pound batch of donated 475 marbles the students began experimenting with glass day and night. As Littleton described “from Wednesday night on, we divided up the time until Saturday—the 24 hours through—and we all played with the glass and blew something.”68

In his article “The Liberation of Glass,” Andrew Page notes that “the breakthrough event freeing glass from the factory was made possible only with the direct and indirect support of the industry.”69 The direct support of Johns Manville and its Vice President is certainly evident in

Labino’s efforts to reconstruct Littleton’s furnace and help establish a workable glass formula.

However, the skills and methods needed to begin manipulating glass into artistic works was also indirectly contributed by an industrial source—Harvey Leafgreen, a retired glassblower from the

Libbey Division of Owens-Illinois. Reports on which day Leafgreen showed up to the workshops differ, however the value of his professional glassblowing knowledge to the workshops is unquestionable. As one of the first workshop’s participants, Edith Franklin recalls:

the first day Harvey Leafgreen came, no one knew what he was there for. He took off his coat, got a blowpipe and some of the melted glass marbles from the furnace, and blew a bubble by putting his thumb over the blowpipe hole. I remember it was like magic that

67 Johns Manville Research & Eng. Center patent cover page (May 13, 1963) Dominick Labino Collection, Rakow Research Library, Corning Museum of Art. 68 Harvey K. Littleton, “Littleton Remembers…,” Glass Art, 4, no. 1 (1976) 24, as cited in Byrd, 42. 69 Andrew Page, “The Liberation of Glass,” The Toledo Workshop Revisited (1962-2012), accessed September 23, 2018 at www.toledoworkshop.org 25

there was this bubble on the other end.70

Leafgreen bestowed the type of knowledge needed to successfully blow a glass piece from beginning to end. As McGlauchlin later recalled, Leafgreen was also happy to demonstrate the various techniques needed to create a variety of vessels. He stated, “Each of us said what we wanted to make, and then he [Leafgreen] would tell you, ‘Okay, get a gather of glass like this…now do this.’”71 Another factory glassblower, Jim Nelson, who worked as a guard at the

Toledo Museum of Art, later joined Leafgreen in his demonstrations.72 Martha Drexler-Lynn notes that, “in this way factory knowledge combined with artistic energy,” to ensure the success of the first studio glass workshops.73

The professional knowledge of Leafgreen and Nelson, Labino’s technical insights and the marble donation from Johns-Mansville, are again indicative of Toledo’s high rate of social capital. Not only were Nelson and Leafgreen motivated to share knowledge, they were active community members who were aware of and participated in the workshops. In addition, had

Johns Manville and Dominick Labino not been inclined to share their glass formula or technical knowledge, it is likely the first workshops would have been a failure. At the very least, it would not have been successful enough to inspire another workshop later that year. Although Johns

Manville did demonstrate a certain degree of information guarding in the aforementioned trade- secrets case, its donation of an unpatented glass formula is indicative of the company’s commitment to good corporate citizenship and support for community endeavors that did not directly compete with its own business ventures. The Studio Glass Movement’s main purpose was and remains the creation of art, not consumer or commercial products.

70 Edith Franklin, “Where were You in ’62?” Glass Art Society (1993), 17. As cited in Drexler, 155. 71 McGlauchlin, interview October 13, 2006, 17, as cited in Byrd, 42. 72 Drexler-Lynn, 55. 73 Ibid. 26

Johns Manville also remained supportive of Littleton and Labino’s efforts to promote studio-glass programming in its formative years after the workshops. After they concluded,

Littleton returned to the University of Wisconsin, Madison as a faculty member in the

Department of Arts and Art Education. His success in Toledo convinced the University to grant him an independent study in glassblowing in fall of 1962.74 Littleton hoped to eventually expand studio glass research into an accepted area of study, but he would need both funding and a steady supply of glass. Johns Manville and Labino assisted with both. In October of 1963, Labino reached out to Jack Solon at the Johns Manville General Headquarters, inquiring about the company’s ability to help fund Littleton’s fledgling glass program. Solon sent a memo back stating “I am ‘for’ your idea” and “more than happy to go to bat on your Wisconsin idea.”75

After receiving a formal proposal from Littleton outlining the school’s need for “funds to finish equipping and operating our glass-working laboratory” Johns Manville donated 1,000 dollars to program. The funds were put towards pay for graduate students to man the furnaces, glass grinders and polishers, and various other tools and supplies; all necessary components of a successful and independent glassblowing center. The goal was to establish a glassblowing facility that could support more graduate students than Littleton’s first independent study and better equip them to explore glass’ unique creative potential.76 The funding received from Johns

Manville helped encourage the Department of Art to support its creation. In the weeks following

Johns Manville’s contribution, Eric R. Rude of the Department’s Research Committee notified

Littleton that they would be willing to donate up to 500 dollars towards his “work in creative

74 Byrd, 48. 75 Memo to Labino from Jack Solon, General Headquarters (October 22, 1963) Dominick Labino Collection, Box 14, Rakow Research Library, Corning Museum of Glass. 76 Letter from Littleton to Dominick Labino at Johns Manville requesting funding (October 25,1963) Dominick Labino Collection, Box 20 Rakow Research Library, Corning Museum of Glass. For information regarding dollar amount donated see Letter to Mr. Joseph S. Halt from School of Education Dean, University of Wisconsin (January 16, 1964) Dominick Labino Collection, Box 20, Rakow Research Library, Corning Museum of Glass. 27 experimentation in glass” with the understanding that the funds would “supplement those you have received toward this work from the Johns Manville Fiber Glass Company.”77

However, Johns Manville and their executives established an ongoing commitment to studio glass not through cash grants, but though the donation of their own commercial products.

In August of 1963, the company donated 2400 pounds of marbles to the University of

Wisconsin-Madison’s Department of Art and Art Education for use in Littleton’s glassblowing course.78 In a letter to Mr. William VanDerbeek, one of Johns Manville’s division managers,

Littleton thanked the company for its donation and acknowledged its role in his class’ success.

He stated, “This course has been developed through the generosity of your company, and through the advice and help of your director of research, Mr. Labino.”79 Direct technical support and a glass supply certainly helped legitimize Littleton’s course in the eyes of the University as project with potential. Even Littleton’s students acknowledged that it was Labino and Johns

Manville’s gift that “made it possible for glass blowing to become a recognized course rather than being in the previously vague classification of ‘independent study.’”80In 1963 Littleton’s glass program officially entered the University’s regular curriculum at the graduate level.81

Littleton’s craft community was well-connected one, and he and his students’ success at the workshops and at the University soon sparked interest in glass across the country. The 475 marble remained the standard formula for glass experimentation and word soon spread among a rapidly growing population of novice glassblowers that Johns Manville could provide them. A

77 Letter from Eric R. Rude to Professor Littleton (January 13, 1964) Dominick Labino Collection, Box 20, Rakow Research Library, Corning Museum of Glass. 78 Letter to William VanDerbeek, Division Manager at Johns Manville from Harvey Littleton (August 9, 1963) Box 20, Dominick Labino Collection, Rakow Research Library, Corning Museum of Glass. 79 Ibid. 80 Student Patricia Esch in letter to Dominick Labino (September 20, 1963) Box 20, Dominick Labino Collection, Rakow Research Library, Corning Museum of Glass. 81 Byrd, 51 28 letter to Labino from Erik Erickson, a stained-glass artist working at the studio craft research center Haystack, in particular encapsulates both new artists’ excitement about glass and their desire for Johns Manville’s product. Prior to Haystack’s first 1964 glass workshop he wrote:

I’ve been working on the glass furnace set-up here at Haystack, Harvey isn’t due for another 6 weeks and, as my patience won’t possible last that long, it appears we may have use for more marbles. May we order some? How much do they cost? How long would it take for the shipment to arrive?82

Labino received letters of a similar flavor from a variety of universities and artists looking to purchase the marbles. Johns Manville offered their marbles to glass studios in 700lb drums for approximately ten cents per pound; however, the increasing demand for their product, coupled with the size of the orders soon became problematic. As Labino noted to the Chairman of the

Ceramics Department at the Philadelphia Museum College of Art, “The 700 lb. lots are almost a nuisance and for this reason we are hoping that Harvey K. Littleton of Verona, Wisconsin will purchase larger qualities and perhaps make shipments from his location in 50 lb. lots.”83

Indeed, Littleton soon began selling Labino’s 475 marbles from his Paoli Clay Co., formerly established in 1959, to sell custom ceramic supplies to area universities and artists.

Labino directed all further inquiries about the 475 marbles directly to Littleton.84 Although the company began to phase itself out of direct communication with artists, Labino and Johns

Manville still worked to support the growing movement. The company began to collect cullet

(recyclable, waste glass) for Littleton suitable for studio artists’ needs. Not only was cullet five

82 Letter from Erik Erikson to Dominick Labino (July 14, 1964) Box 20, Dominick Labino Collection, Rakow Research Library, Corning Museum of Glass. 83 Letter to Mr. Louis Mendez from Dominick Labino (August 14, 1964) Box 20, Dominick Labino Collection, Rakow Research Library, Corning Museum of Glass. 84 Letter to Henry Schrieber, Assistant Professor of Art at Arizona State University from Dominick Labino (September 10, 1964) Box 20, Dominick Labino Collection, Rakow Research Library, Corning Museum of Glass. 29 cents cheaper per pound, but it would “be clean and in some cases have better properties for making colored melts as compared to marbles.”85

Johns Manville, along with its Vice President and Head of Research and Development

Dominick Labino, clearly demonstrated its commitment to supporting the Studio Glass

Movement’s expansion in its formative years. However, as studio glass became more established in other regions of the United States, in the 1970s and beyond Toledo’s glass industry turned its support inward toward supporting local glassblowing programs at community institutions such as the Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo University and Bowling Green State University. Glass companies and their executives also began supporting local artists by collecting their glass art pieces. Therefore, the role of Toledo’s glass industry in the Studio Glass Movement does not end with this chapter. Its reappearance in the exploration of other aspects of Toledo’s community in

Chapter 2 reinforces the role of Toledo glass companies as strong corporate citizens, involved at many levels of Toledo’s arts community. That the city’s industry should have been such an active participant in studio glass comes as no surprise, given its historical predisposition to pursuing creativity and innovation in glass. From the start of the Libbey Glass Company,

Toledo’s glass industry fostered creativity in glass through inventions, including Owen’s Bottle

Making Machine and the first glass dress. However, it also developed a culture that already perceived glass as a material that could embody elements of artistry, as demonstrated in intricate cut glass pieces. It would be this culture that would drive Toledo’s art museum and area universities to support the movement.

85 Dominick Labino in letter to Harvey Littleton (September 10, 1964) Box 20, Dominick Labino Collection, Rakow Research Library, Corning Museum of Glass. 30

CHAPTER II. EDUCATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

In his work, Cities of the Heartland: The Rise and Fall of the Industrial Midwest, Jon C.

Teaford argues that in the mid-twentieth century Midwestern community organizations continued a long tradition of cultural colonialism. That is, the rustbelt “exported grain and automobiles, but imported ideas and entertainment. It was a cultural imitator rather than an innovator.”86 The East and West coasts dictated what music, , television and were popular. This sense of “cultural inferiority” was especially fueled by organizations responsible for disseminating culture, such as art museums. Post World War Two, New York was the art capital of the world, and according to Teaford, midwestern museums wanting to prove themselves traditionally followed New York’s standards—the main goal being to spread appreciation for the artistic trends of Europe and the East. Therefore, Teaford argues, there was no drive for heartland museums to nurture or create art, especially at the local level. Further,

“these museums never sought to challenge artistic dogma or to incite rebellion.”87 The Toledo

Museum of Art proved itself an exception to Teaford’s argument in terms of its approach to local artists and the Studio Glass Movement.

From its beginnings, the TMA established itself as an organization that embraced its locality. Its founding in 1901 by glass industry giant Edward Drummond Libbey established an enduring connection to the glass that would continue to strengthen through the decades. Glass objects became part of the Museum’s permanent collection in 1913 when Libbey acquired 53

European and Baroque from the German publisher Julius Heinrich Wilhelm Campe’s estate. This acquisition proved to be the most significant example of a historical European glass

86 Jon C. Teaford, Cities of the Heartland: The Rise and Fall of the Industrial Midwest (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993) 244. 87 Ibid., 249. 31 collection in the states at the time, and by the next decade Toledo’s glass rivaled the

Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection.88 In part, Libbey collected ancient glass to serve as inspiration for his own designers and craftsman. However, he also recognized the artistic contributions made by his own company and began adding pieces of Libbey Glass to the permanent collection in 1913, the first being an engraved punch bowl showcased at the 1904 St.

Louis World’s Fair.89 The Toledo Museum of Art’s commitment to collecting the work of local glass craftsman continued long after Libbey’s death—the Museum now owns more than 600 objects from Libbey, Inc.90

The Toledo Museum of Art also demonstrated an early sense of regional loyalty in its commitment to education and local artists. Its first director, George W. Stevens, placed an emphasis on classes that taught artistic methods and techniques while also offering daily lectures to the public and tours of local glass factories.91 In an excerpt from author Cornelia Stratton

Parker, included in a text written about Steven’s life, it is noted that, “From the start his ideal was an art museum which should play a social, civic, educational, aesthetic role in the life of the entire community. Art not for art’s sake but for the sake of every man, woman and child in

Toledo.”92 Stevens’ and the Museum’s mission to become an engaging member of the Toledo community was furthered by the creation of the Toledo Federation of Arts Societies in 1917.

Stevens brought together several area art associations, including the Tile Club, ArtKlan and the

88 “Glass and the TMA,” Toledo Museum of Art. Accessed October 13, 2018 at https://toledomuseum.org. 89 Floyd, 38. 90 Valerie Hughes, “Exhibition: The Toledo Museum of Art celebrates the industrial glass empire that has supported it since 1901,” Glass Quarterly (May 9, 2018) Urban Glass. Accessed October 13, 2018 at https://urbanglass.org/glass/detail/celebrating-libbey-glass-1818-2018. 91 Floyd, 37. 92 Cornelia Stratton Parker, The Wanderers’ Circle (1934) as cited in Nina Spaulding Stevens, A Man & A Dream; The Book of George W. Stevens (Hollywood: Hollycrofters, ca.1941) 219-220. 32

Athena Art Society to form one organization whose goal was to support local artists through annual exhibitions in partnership with the TMA.93

The TMA built upon Stevens’ vision and by the mid-twentieth century the Museum had established itself as an organization with a reputation for community engagement and a promoter of local’s artistic ambitions. Edith Franklin, one of first studio glass workshop participants recalled the Museum being a large part of both her childhood and adult life prior to 1962. She stated that the majority of her life was “very, you know, run-of-the-mill so on, except that I always took art classes at the museum as a child and then as an adult with children I came and took ceramic classes…it has been the museum that has given me a lot in and for my life.”94 This type of educational programming enjoyed by Franklin and other Toledo residents built a strong community network of artists and art interest groups in the region. The TMA provided classes for budding artists, but also supported their continued success by exhibiting local pieces of art in annual exhibitions. As a member of Steven’s Toledo Federation of Art Societies (TFAS) the

Museum annually donated space and staff to curate the exhibits. Notably, according to high-art standards of the time, many of the objects put on display would qualify as , not fine art. For example, the 31st Annual Exhibition included Art Metalwork, Ceramics, Enamel on Metal, and

Weaving categories.95 Consequently, prior to the studio glass workshops, the TMA was already establishing itself as an organization sympathetic to unordinary and often marginalized artforms.

Local artists working with these mediums continued to flourish in the region with support from the Museum. This growth in Toledo’s art community was especially reflected in The Toledo

93 K.A. Letts, “From the TMA to Today: Looking Back at the Art History and Development of the Toledo Federation of Art Societies,” Toledo City Paper (June 27, 2017). 94 Edith Franklin, Oral History Interview with Edith Franklin and Tom McGlauchlin conducted by Julie McMaster and Davira Taragin (October 13, 1999) Folder 5, Glass Workshop Records, Toledo Museum of Art Library. 95 31st Annual Exhibition, Toledo Artists Brochure (February 6-27, 1949) Box 23, Dominick Labino Collection, Rakow Research Library, Corning Museum of Glass. 33

Area Artist’s Thirty-Sixth Annual Exhibition hosted by the TMA in 1954. In his exhibition foreword the TFAS President noted the increased variety, quality and number of objects displayed in that year’s exhibit and pointed to an increased enthusiasm for arts as the cause. He stated, “The size and character of this show is in direct proportion to the enormous amount of artistic growth and activity in Toledo this winter.”96 Therefore, only eight years before the first studio glass workshops, there existed in Toledo an active and well-connected network within the

Toledo Museum of Art community that supported local artistic ventures in craft media. Both

Harvey Littleton and Dominick Labino connected as part of this network in the Annual

Exhibitions. Labino served as President of the TFAS in 1956, the same year Littleton received an

Honorable Mention for a Bottle entered in the Ceramics category.97

The Toledo Area Artist Exhibitions gave Harvey Littleton access to the TMA network as an exhibiting artist, but he also fostered a relationship with the Museum as an instructor in the

Museum’s education programming. Teaching ceramics gave Littleton the opportunity to connect with Museum Director Otto Wittmann, who would later become an advocate of Littleton’s glass ambitions. According to McGlauchlin, Harvey made early efforts to reach out to Wittmann. He describes how Littleton often “kept track of when Otto left his office and he would stand in the hall so he was there when Otto came out of his office, so he could bring up things that he needed for the classes.”98 In return, McGlauchlin also noted, Wittmann was also eager to build a positive relationship with the son of Corning Glass’ Vice President. Littleton and Wittmann

96 J. Daniel Woodward, President’s Foreword, Thirty-Sixth Annual Exhibition Toledo Area Artists Brochure (May 2-30, 1954) Box 8, Dominick Labino Collection, Rakow Research Library, Corning Museum of Glass. 97 Thirty-Eighth Annual Exhibition Toledo Area Artists Brochure (May 6-27, 1956) Box 23, Dominick Labino Collection, Rakow Research Library, Corning Museum of Glass. 98 Tom McGlauchlin, Oral History Interview with Edith Franklin and Tom McGlauchlin conducted by Julie McMaster and Davira Taragin (October 13, 1999) Folder 5, Glass Workshop Records, Toledo Museum of Art Library. 34 continued to build social capital through the same weekly poker games Labino took part in—

Otto Wittmann was also a member of the club.

Therefore, by the time Littleton approached Wittmann about the possibility of experimenting with glass as an art medium, the two had already established a close relationship.

After hearing that he had been turned down for a Guggenheim Scholarship to study glass,

Wittman expressed interest in supporting the ambitions of his former associate. In a 1961 letter to Art Education Supervisor Charles Gunther he wrote:

He [Littleton] has developed some furnaces to work with glass in his own house and thinks that it is perfectly feasible to do this. He did not receive the Guggenheim Fellowship, but in talking to him yesterday I suggested that perhaps he might like to give a seminar for about one week here in this Museum on the subject of glass and how one could work with it…Knowing that there has been some interest in working with glass…it occurred to me that it might be a good thing for us to do.”99

As a fellow former art instructor at the TMA, Charles Gunther was soon on board. He met with

Littleton to discuss his proposed plan for the seminar and connected Littleton with Norman

Schulman, the same ceramic instructor that coordinated with Labino on the workshop’s technical aspects. The two established a list of prominent ceramicists who they believed would be interested in the unique seminar. Littleton’s original plan for the workshop was to “acquaint skilled craftsmen, now working in ceramic processes, with the potentials and some of the basic techniques and equipment for working with hot glass.”100 By inviting skilled craftsmen, Littleton wanted to promote the glass workshop as a legitimate artistic endeavor. His proposal included plans to display the work of registered participants in order “to demonstrate the caliber of the people taking part.”101 The TMA sent a letter to the potential candidates named by Shulman and

99 Otto Wittmann, Memo to Mr. Gunther (June 6, 1961) Folder 1, Glass Workshop Records, Toledo Museum of Art Library. 100 Charles F. Gunther, Memo to Otto Wittmann (September 29, 1961) Folder 1, Glass Workshop Records, Toledo Museum of Art Library. 101 Ibid. 35

Littleton. It outlined the workshop’s tentative programming and encouraged an immediate response, as space would be limited to ten participants. The Museum also demonstrated its own commitment and historical connection to glass in the letter’s opening. It stated “This city grew because of the glass industry which is still centered in Toledo. We would like to see glassmaking continue as an art form.” 102

The TMA remained committed to seeing the workshop succeed, even after Littleton received fewer replies than expected. To keep organizational support despite low enrollment

Wittmann encouraged Littleton to begin contacting people he thought might be interested by phone. He also proposed Littleton hold an open meeting for the public on the workshop’s last day, at which time the Museum would “invite all the craftsman in the neighborhood to come and see what had been produced in the workshop during the past week and so that he would have a chance to talk to them on the project and to sell them on joining the course the following year.”103 This offer demonstrates both the Museum commitment to engaging the greater community through educational programming, but also its aspirations to continue investing in glass as an art medium. Plans for future glass education programs in the following year were already being discussed.

Ultimately, Littleton was able to attract only a handful of university ceramic instructors to the first workshop. They included Tom McGlauchlin from Cornell College, from

Indiana University, and John Stephenson from the University of Michigan. The limited number of advanced instructors opened the workshop to beginning students, including Toledoan Edith

Franklin. She had first expressed interest in the workshop when her instructor Norm Schulman

102 Letter to Prospective Workshop Participants, Toledo Museum of Art (ca. 1962) Folder 1, Glass Workshop Records, Toledo Museum of Art Library. 103 Memo to Mr. Gunther from Mr. Wittmann (March 1, 1962) Folder 1, Glass Workshop Records, Toledo Museum of Art Library. 36 mentioned the plans during pottery class. After being initially turned down because the seminar was only for university professors, Schulman approached her again, this time offering Franklin one of the several spaces still available for a registration fee of fifty dollars. Excited to participate, Franklin “ran to get the money.”104 The first workshop eventually registered a total of seven people, however; others joined unofficially throughout the week. Late comers included friends of Littleton, glass fusers Michael and Frances Higgins of Chicago.105

As discussed in Chapter One, coordination between the Toledo Museum of Art and

Dominick Labino at Johns Manville ensured that these first participants had the technical knowledge needed to successfully blow glass. The Museum further acted as a mediator between the industry and the arts by setting up a tour of the Libbey Glass Company for participants.

While Tom McGlauchlin recalls the tour guide at first being apprehensive about leading the group through the facility, the Libbey Company remained open to aspiring glass artists and hosted TMA workshop participants in another seminar that year.106 In initiating this interaction, the Museum helped lay the foundation for a future of cooperation between Toledo’s industrial glass companies and Studio Glass Movement artists—one that would be conductive to the

Movement’s future success and extend far beyond facility tours. In effect, the TMA helped establish glass industry’s support for studio glass as a regional institutional norm in the movement’s infancy.

While the TMA recognized the significance of outside industrial partnerships within the emerging movement, the organization was also cognizant of the role its own internal resources

104 Edith Franklin, “Where were you in ’62?” Glass Art Society Journal (1993) 16, as cited in Drexler-Lynn, 54. 105 Glass-Seminar Workshop Roll Book, Box 1, Glass Workshop Records, Toledo Museum of Art Library. 106 Tom McGlauchlin, Oral History Interview with Edith Franklin and Tom McGlauchlin conducted by Julie McMaster and Davira Taragin (October 13, 1999) Folder 5, Glass Workshop Records, Toledo Museum of Art Library. 37 could play. While Littleton was given a salary for running the seminar and funds to build a furnace and tools, some of the glassblowing tools used came directly from the Museum’s collection itself. The Museum’s Curator of , Rudolph Reifstalf, also opened its rich ancient glass collections to the seminar participants. The pieces were taken out of their cases and handled directly by the seminar students. This special access made a lasting impression on

Franklin, who later recalled of Mr. Reifstalf and the experience: “You had to know Rudy, ‘cause he didn’t let anyone touch the tabletop and here he opened the cases and you could literally pick out the little ampoules…and we got down into the bowels of the basement and got into all of those shelves of stuff that has never been out of the museum.”107 These opportunities given for participants to explore early glass forms and techniques were especially important sources of inspiration for the first workshop. Glass as an art medium was still in its developmental phase, thus participants were just beginning to explore what forms were possible with glass—and what knowledge and techniques were needed to attain these possibilities.

The TMA continued to promote exploration in glass in another workshop just months after the first March seminar in 1962. Although largely amorphous and blobular, similar to

Littleton’s 1964 work Implosion/Explosion, pictured below in Figure 5, the glass pieces produced in the first workshop proved that a craftsman could work alone at a small furnace to blow glass. In a letter to Labino thanking him for his support of the process, Otto Wittmann declared the workshop as “a successful first effort” that encouraged the Museum “to proceed further with our experiments in this area.”108

107 Edith Franklin, Oral History Interview with Edith Franklin and Tom McGlauchlin conducted by Julie McMaster and Davira Taragin (October 13, 1999) Folder 5, Glass Workshop Records, Toledo Museum of Art Library. 108 Otto Wittmann, Letter to Mr. Dominick Labino (April 5, 1962) Box 15, Dominick Labino Collection, Rakow Research Library, Corning Museum of Glass. 38

Figure 4: Harvey K. Littleton, Implosion/Explosion, 1964. Glass, blown. H: 7 7/16 in. (16.35 cm); Max Diam of opening: 5 9/16 in. (14.2 cm); Max Length: 6 7/16 in. (16.4 cm). Toledo Museum of Art.

Thus, the Museum sponsored a longer, two-week “advanced seminar-workshop” from June 18-

30th of the same year. Advertised as a “pioneering” activity “for craftsman interested in working with glass, the workshop program offered “opportunities for experimentation and practical exercises in glass, casting, blowing, tooling, lampworking, molding and annealing.”109 Although still focused on experimentation, this program offered a more organized, multi-faceted agenda than its earlier counterpart. It was also more widely advertised and attended—Wittmann’s brother-in-law, Just Lunning, further aided Littleton’s efforts to recruit applicants by offering two $100 scholarships to interested candidates.110 Eleven people ultimately attended the June seminar, the majority of them craft instructors or undergraduates from across the country. 111

109 “Museum Announces Unique Glass Seminar Workshop,” News Release, Toledo Museum of Art (April 23, 1962) Box 20, Dominick Labino Collection, Rakow Research Library, Corning Museum of Glass. 110 Byrd, 43. 111 Glass Workshop Report 1962 (June 1962) Box 1, Glass Workshop Records. Toledo Museum of Art. 39

The event schedule for these participants was characterized by TMA’s continued dedication to promoting cooperation and knowledge sharing between industry and art.

Cooperation was first established through the Owens-Illinois Technical Center which “expressed considerable interest” and “encouragement” through the donation of supplies.112 Notably, Harvey

Leafgreen and fellow former Libbey glassblower Jim Nelson were also asked to share their skills, this time in an official capacity. Ten days of the thirteen-day workshop included dedicated time for the professional glassblowers to both demonstrate techniques and direct students. In addition, factory influence appeared in a lecture on annealing given by Labino’s fellow Johns

Manville employee, Larry Gagen, and a class visit to Labino’s home laboratory.113 This type of programming was already proving inspirational—Norm Schulman brought an annealing oven to the June workshop modeled after one he had previously viewed during his first Libbey factory tour.114 While Shulman’s first annealing idea was ultimately ineffective, his efforts are indicative of how industrial knowledge influenced the trial and error approach taken by early glass artists.

Techniques were also explored through the imitation and study of pieces from the Museum’s collection. The June seminar, for example, challenged participants to “complete [a] copy of object from [the] Museum Collection,” by the second to last day of the workshop.115

An extensive twenty-four-page report published after the June workshop’s conclusion included not only the tools, glass formulas and techniques used in the seminar, but also each participant’s assessment of the seminar’s success in fostering glass exploration.

Overwhelmingly, each student’s evaluation was positive. Robert C. Florian, a teacher from

112 “Toledo Art Museum Workshop Explores Glass as Creative Medium,” Toledo Museum of Art News Release (ca. July 1962) 3, Folder 2, Glass Workshop Records, Toledo Museum of Art. 113 Glass Workshop Report 1962 (June 1962) Box 1, Glass Workshop Records, Toledo Museum of Art. 114 Byrd, 44. 115 Program of Events (April 23, 1962) Box 20, Dominick Labino Collection, Rakow Research Library, Corning Museum of Glass. 40

Illinois described his time in the workshop as “an invaluable and gratifying experience.” Octavio

Medellin, a sculptor from Dallas admitted that while he was initially skeptical of the workshop’s direction, he left with the opinion that it developed “vital roots that will direct and inspire the contemporary artist craftsman into the world of glass, and into a new field of art in the world of art.”116 Certainly these affirmations of the seminar’s achievements are significant to the Studio

Glass Movement’s larger history, especially in terms of the lasting impression Toledo’s workshops had on students who were inspired to develop their own glass programs across the nation. Far more relevant for this regional study, however, are participant’s perceptions of why and how Toledo and the TMA were able to pull-off such a successful venture. The evaluations point to noticeably high-rates of regional social capital as a primary cause of the class’ accomplishments. In his report statement, , a University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate student studying under Littleton, noted that “the cooperation and generosity of Johns

Manville & Mr. Labino,” in addition to “the cooperation of the curators of the glass collections,” were both “factors which are unique to Toledo and which contributed greatly to the success of these workshops.”117 Howard Kottler of further described Toledo’s climate as one that noticeably encouraged information sharing and socialization between industrial and artistic sectors. He believed the workshop’s, “openness of knowledge, free from technical secrets which have clouded the studio field in recent years, speaks well in an atmosphere of mutual gain and enlightenment.”118 According to Kottler, the TMA had effectively broken the knowledge barrier between industry and art by bringing in the help of Labino and Leafgreen, thus allowing for glass to be reinvigorated as a medium and its full potential explored.119 As Putnam’s theory

116 Glass Workshop Report 1962 (June 1962) Box 1, Glass Workshop Records. Toledo Museum of Art, 8-10. 117 Glass Workshop Report 1962 (June 1962) Box 1, Glass Workshop Records. Toledo Museum of Art, 11. 118 Ibid., 10. 119 Ibid., 10. 41 describes, these types of positive, barrier-breaching interactions between groups and individuals are what build the social networks that ultimately hold value and lead to a group’s productivity and success.120 In the Movement’s formative years, the Museum continued to promote these types of cooperative, creative networks that studio glass needed to succeed both within the first seminar and in Toledo’s artistic circles.

Moving forward from the June workshop, Assistant to the Director Millard Rogers recognized that, “expansion of the content, study and facilities in these glass seminars with the consideration for the permanent establishment of such seminars may be needed as the next step.”121 Hoping to further distinguish themselves as a hub for artistic glass exploration, the

Museum set its sights upon continued educational programming. On July 10th, just weeks after the second workshop’s conclusion, Charles Gunther and Millard Rogers sent a joint memo to

Wittmann, outlining possibilities for future glass education. The majority of their recommendations were centered around the creation of a seasonal “Glass Institute” that would serve as an augmented version of the first summer workshops. Instruction would be provided by

Leafgreen, Nelson, Shulman and a select group of three to four students who would work in glass experimentation year-round at the Museum’s facilities. During the summer, the plan proposed that this core group would lead a public session that would include a hands-on seminar, in addition to local high-school programming and lectures on the for collectors and scholars.122 Gunther and Rogers also mentioned the possibility of coordinating with the

University of Toledo to create a degree program in glass through the college of Engineering.

120 Putnam, 19. 121 Glass Workshop Report 1962 (June 1962) Box 1, Glass Workshop Records, Toledo Museum of Art, 8. 122 Memorandum to Mr. Wittmann from Mr. Gunther & Mr. Rogers (July 10, 1962) Folder 2, Glass Workshop Records, Toledo Museum of Art, 9. 42

Finally, “as a last possibility”, the two recommended that the TMA continue to host more seminars conducting by Littleton during his vacations from Wisconsin.123

Charles Gunther and Millard Roger’s memo illustrates the Museum’s push to not only engage other community organizations in glass, such as UT and local high-schools, but also to establish themselves as a national leader in glass education. While outlining the benefits of the proposed “Glass Institute,” the pair claimed that with more experimental programming the TMA could become “real authorities, knowing the best way to teach glass working.”124 These ambitions were in line with the TMA’s traditional emphasis on education, beginning with previous Director George Stevens, but also with Wittmann’s desires to obtain governmental recognition of museums as educational institutions. In June of 1962, while workshop participants blew glass in a ground-breaking educational seminar, Wittmann delivered a speech before the

National Association of Art Museum Directors that promoted a higher limit on tax deductions for museum contributions. According to one Toledo Blade article, Wittmann’s speech argued that

“there is a need for government to recognize the education of millions that is provided by

America’s museums, and that new methods of education developed by museums are as valid, as effective, and far-reaching as older forms used by other recognized educational institutions.”125 It should be noted that the types of social networks that build strong social capital are symbiotic, that is, they are based around reciprocity. In the case of the TMA and Wittmann, their efforts to further studio glass education provided both educational facilities and institutional validation for the Studio Glass Movement and its medium. In return, the TMA could claim itself as the

123 Ibid. 124 Ibid. 125 “Museums in Education,” Toledo Blade (June 14, 1962) Folder 2, Glass Workshop Records, Toledo Museum of Art. 43 birthplace of an innovative program that supported Wittmann’s argument of legitimate and effective museum education.

Despite this initial enthusiasm, it was four years before the TMA restarted glass programing. In the Fall of 1966 the Museum sponsored the Toledo Glass National One, the first national competitive exhibition specifically for glass craftsmen. Held from October 15th through

November 15th, the exhibition was juried by Edgar Kaufmann Jr., a lecturer from Columbia

University, Paul N. Perrot, the director of the Corning Museum of Glass, and the TMA’s Rudolf

Reifstahl. While over 200 were entered, the jury selected only eighty pieces that they believed best exemplified glass’ unique qualities as molten medium but, most importantly, the independent spirit of the first workshops.126 Therefore, the primary qualification for submission was that an artist had completed his or her piece alone. As early glass artist recalls of the submission process, “You had to sign a piece of paper that said, I made this piece all by myself; no one opened my door.”127 Included among these entries were pieces by Littleton and many of his students from Wisconsin, two of which received rewards. Two jury awards were also received by Dominick Labino.128

The TMA conceived of the exhibition as follow up to the 1962 workshops—a demonstration of the experimental strides made in glass as a result of the Museum’s first inspirational seminars. While the exhibit catalogue pointed proudly to “about fifteen courses in glass craftsmanship now taught in colleges and art school across the country,” the TMA also used the exhibition as a springboard for its own educational programming.129 Before the Glass

126 Louise Bruner, “Glass Workshop,” American Artist (February 1969) Box 11, Dominick Labino Collection, Rakow Research Library, Corning Museum of Glass, 49-50. 127 Fritz Dreisbach, Oral history interview by Susanne Frantz, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian, April 21-22, 2004, accessed October 11, 2018 at https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-fritz- dreisbach-11904#overview. 128 Byrd,70. 129 Toledo Glass National, exh. cat. Toledo Museum of Art, n.p., as cited in Byrd, 68. 44

National opened that night, the museum invited the public to “hear glass craftsmen, curators, and craft authorities exchange views,” in a series of lectures entitled, “Glassmaking as an Individual

Craftsman’s Art.”130 Littleton, Reifstahl and Labino each gave individual talks, after which attendees were invited to join the exhibition’s opening. In addition, the Museum offered an open screening of a color film on glass the next day.131 Besides these efforts to engage the wider community with glass art developments, the Museum also reestablished glassblowing seminars.

A day before the exhibition came to its close, the TMA began an advanced seminar held at the personal workshop of Dominick Labino from November 14-19th.

Labino had retired from Johns Manville in 1965 to pursue his own interests in glass.

Although he continued to consult for the company, his creative efforts following retirement were focused on building his own laboratory and developing glass as an artistic medium at his home in

Grand Rapids, Ohio. By the next 1966 workshop, Labino had created a facility with a working furnace, annealer and tools better equipped for a seminar than the TMA could offer on its own grounds.132 Besides a high-quality working environment, Labino also offered an immense amount of glassblowing skills he had constantly cultivated since the first workshops. In fact, his reputation as a glassblowing authority had already begun in 1964, as illustrated by Fritz

Dreisbach’s later recollections on his first meeting with Labino that summer. According to

Dreisbach, visiting Labino’s laboratory was “like going to Mecca,” for a beginning glassblower like himself.133 He further revealed that Labino: had been blowing glass longer than almost any of the other Americans at that time…Nick had been blowing consistently every day or every evening for two years at that point—one and a half years, two

130 Louise Bruner, “Presentation Planned by Glass Craftsmen,” The Toledo Blade (October 12, 1966) Box 11, Dominick Labino Collection, Rakow Research Library, Corning Museum of Glass. 131 Ibid. 132 Dominick Labino, Exhibition Catalogue, n.d. Toledo Museum of Art. 133 Fritz Dreisbach, Oral history interview by Susanne Frantz. 45

years. That was a huge amount of glasswork that he had made by then—by that time, hundreds of— literally hundreds of pieces…so, he was way ahead of us on a lot of things.134

Given this high-level of expertise and Labino’s history with the TMA, he was a natural choice to lead the Museum’s next seminar in 1966.

Labino went onto lead two more workshops in the summer and fall of 1967 for

“advanced craftsmen now practicing in the Art of Glass Blowing.” These workshops were marketed toward those in teaching positions with the means to further disseminate acquired skills and technical information after the seminars.135 In the midst of supporting these seasonal workshops, the TMA was also developing permanent programming and glassblowing facilities on its own grounds. A letter from Wittmann, thanking Labino for his contributions to the

Museum, reveals that the Museum was beginning to establish a workshop for novice glass blowers in 1967. Wittmann assured Labino that the annealing oven and exhaust hood he donated would “certainly…receive a great deal of use.”136 Wittmann’s promise was soon realized— glassblowing became a regular part of the Museum’s curriculum in January of 1968.137 Classes were taught by glassblower Fritz Dreisbach, who was hired by the TMA in 1967 after earning his

MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The Museum’s first dedicated glass studio was located in its air-conditioning plant. It was here that Dreisbach led the Museum’s 1968 summer workshop.138 However, if the TMA was going to offer wider opportunities for glass education

134 Ibid. 135 Glass Blowing Flyer for Nov.6-11 workshop, Toledo Museum of Art (1967) Box 15, Dominick Labino Collection, Rakow Research Library, Corning Museum of Glass. Specific dates for each of the TMA’s workshops can be found in Letter to Mrs. Dominick Labino from Charles Gunther (December 23, 1971) Box 8, Dominick Labino Collection, Rakow Research Library, Corning Museum of Glass. 136 Letter to Dominick Labino from Otto Wittmann (December 29, 1967) Box 15, Dominick Labino Collection, Rakow Research Library, Corning Museum of Glass. 137 Letter to Mrs. Dominick Labino from Charles Gunther. 138 Letter to Mrs. Raymond A. Bruner from Charles Gunther. 46 like those first discussed by Wittmann, Gunther and Rogers in 1962, its glass facilities would need to expand.

On December 16, 1968, the TMA broke ground on the new Crafts-Studio Building.139 In addition to funds from the Museum’s endowment, this $275,000 project was sponsored by local glass giants Libbey-Owens-Ford, Owens-Illinois, Inc., and the Owens-Corning Fiber Glass

Corporation.140 Cleary Toledo’s glass companies were still proving themselves to be strong corporate citizens, in support of the TMA’s efforts expand local glass education. Designed with assistance from Labino and Dreisbach, the facility included two glass furnaces, two glory holes

(kilns for reheating glass) and enough space for eight students to work at one time; the TMA’s original facility only allowed for two. Areas for cold work and public observation were also included. Although space in the building was also designated for other crafts, such has , sculpture and welding, the Crafts-Studio Building was the first of its kind in the

United States, built specifically for glassblowing.141

Part of the TMA’s vision for this state-of-the-art structure was a partnership with the

University of Toledo. Prior to 1968, the Museum had already been cultivating a relationship with the University by functioning as its Art Department. The precedent for offering college credit for glass had also been set by the June 1962 workshop, which offered three Art credit hours for graduate students who attended.142 University of Toledo officials were invited to the Crafts

Studio Building groundbreaking, and a curriculum in contemporary glass practice was soon

139 Although local newspapers and a TMA News Release first referred to this new addition as the Crafts-Building, it was later known as the Glass-Crafts Building and is listed as such on the Toledo Museum of Art’s website. 140 “Groundbreaking Slated for Museum Addition,” Toledo Blade (December 6, 1968) Box 11, Dominick Labino Collection, Rakow Research Library, Corning Museum of Glass. 141 Toledo Museum of Art News Release (December 16, 1968) Folder 4, Glass Workshop Records, Toledo Museum of Art. 142 Toledo Museum of Art Press Release (April 23, 1962) Folder 2, Glass Workshop Records, Toledo Museum of Art. 47 established in the new facility for UT students. Course work included an exploration of hot and cold glass techniques, in addition to classes in glass history. Wittmann referred to the Museum’s coordination with UT as a “unique relationship,” and it certainly illustrated the expanding network of Toledo’s organizations that supported studio glass.143 The new studio building also offered a variety of classes for adult members of the Toledo community.

Although he was enthusiastic about taking on his first-full time teaching position,

Dreisbach was somewhat skeptical of these adult classes. The promotion of university programming was the primary focus for many members of the Studio Glass Movement in these formative years, not the recruitment of locals interested in hobby crafts. However, Dreisbach later admitted that this connection to enthusiastic community members became a valuable part of his glass career. As he subsequently recalled, “It turned out that those adults that were in my adult education class, people like Brian Lonsway, Bob Packo and others, were a very big help to me…To be around people and to have them get excited about glass spurred me on to be an even better teacher.”144 The encouragement Dreisbach from locals indicates that Toledo had become an innovative hub for studio glass, in part powered by the region’s creative community members. This is not surprising, given Moretti’s assertion that, “social interactions among creative workers tend to generate learning opportunities that enhance innovation and productivity.”145 One result of these social interactions was one of the Studio Glass Movement’s first published texts on how to build glass studios safely and efficiently, written by Dreisbach and his group of “friends in Toledo.”146

143 Toledo Museum of Art Press Release (December 16, 1968). 144 Fritz Dreisbach, Oral history interview by Susanne Frantz. 145 Moretti, 138. 146 Fritz Dreisbach, Oral history interview by Susanne Frantz. 48

Several of the TMA’s adult glass students who worked with Dreisbach became accomplished studio glass artists themselves. While their individual careers and the networks that supported their success will be discussed more thoroughly in Chapter three, it is also important to note that the TMA’s growing glass community attracted prominent glass artists from across the county. As Dreisbach further commented on his time in the city: “I was connected with one of the leaders of the glass activities. And that meant that a lot of people came through town and I got to meet people that I would not have met had I been off in some podunk school somewhere in the boondocks.” Visitors to Toledo included artists like Dale Chihuly and

Marvin Lipofsky, who attended seminars the Museum hosted in the late Sixties, in addition to

Tom McGlauchlin, who joined the TMA as an instructor in 1971.147 In 1975, the newly formed

Glass Art Society (GAS) also voted to hold its fifth annual conference at the Toledo Museum of

Art. Jack Schmidt, a Toledo public school teacher turned glass artist, was instrumental in coordinating with GAS and ensuring the conference’s success. Attendees were able to tour the

Museum’s extensive glass collection, visit Labino’s personal laboratory and view a sand-casting demonstration by Swedish glass designer Bertil Vallien in the Museum’s advanced studio.148

Toledo had become a depository for studio glass knowledge, where both local and national glass blowers could coordinate and network.

It was this network that also aided in the creation of a studio glass program at Northwest

Ohio’s Bowling Green State University. Glassblowing classes at BGSU grew out of a partnership with Dominick Labino and Carl Hall, a professor in the design program of the

University’s School of Art. Hall first became interested in glassblowing after attending the

147 Fritz Dreisbach, Oral history interview by Susanne Frantz. 148 Fritz Dreisbach, “The Roots of the Glass Art Society: The First Decade,” as originally printed in the Glass Art Society Journal (2010), accessed October 10, 2018 at https://glassart.org. 49

TMA’s 1967 workshop taught by Labino.149 An enthusiast about the material’s potential, Hall worked with Labino to bring hot glass classes to campus by the following year. Willard Misfeldt, a professor emeritus of art history at Bowling Green, later recalled that “Hall was the one who started working with glass, and he was playing around with it and experimenting with it, and it became a program on its own."150 The program grew quickly, and by the time the University expanded its Fine Arts Complex in 1972, glass had already made the priority list for new space allocations.151 Labino stayed an active member in the new program as well, and was hired in as an Adjunct Professor in Art in 1974 to teach glassblowing. In his acceptance letter, Labino pointed to a strong history of cooperation he shared with BGSU’s Art Department, stating, “I have for some years enjoyed working with the professors in the School of Art, and I look forward to further service in the future.”152

The relationships Labino also cultivated with University administrators likely influenced the school’s support for its studio glass program. Correspondence between Labino and President

William Travers Jerome, III indicates that the two had an informal, if not causal relationship.

Labino addressed President Jerome as “Bill” in his letters and mentioned attending events such as athletic luncheons with him. 153 A clear supporter of Labino’s artistic accomplishments, it was

President Jerome who presented Labino with an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree in 1970 and who also encouraged the art department to incorporate Labino’s work in campus

149 “Glass Seminar Nov 6-11, 1976,” Roll Book, Box 1, Glass Workshop Records, Toledo Museum of Art. 150 Willard Misfeldt, as quoted in Carl D. Hall’s Obituary, Toledo Blade (September 24, 2016). 151 “School of Art Priority List of Gross Space Needs,” included in memo to President Moore (November 1972), Folder 5, Box 210, UA 002G Office of President Hollis A. Moore, Center for Archival Collections, Bowling Green State University. 3,000 sq. ft. was allocated for the glass program. 152 Dominick Labino, Letter to President Hollis A. Moore (April 22, 1947) Folder 1, Box 140, UA 002G Office of President Hollis A. Moore, Center for Archival Collections, Bowling Green State University. 153 Dominick Labino, Letter to President William Travers Jerome, III (January 15, 1970) Folder 1, Box 140, UA 002G Office of President Hollis A. Moore, Center for Archival Collections, Bowling Green State University. 50 beautification projects.154 When the presidency passed to Dr. Hollis A. Moore in 1971, Labino and his artwork remained valuable assets to the University. Especially celebrated was an icosahedron sculpture, composed of twenty equilateral glass triangles, that Labino donated to the

Mathematical Sciences Building in 1976.155 Clearly excited about the sculpture, Moore sent

Labino a letter stating, “no other artistic expression in the years I’ve been at Bowling Green can begin to measure up to the quality of the genuine excitement which your sculpture will create on campus.”156 Prior to the sculpture’s installation, Labino had cultivated Moore’s enthusiasm for glass by inviting the President and his wife out to his personal workshop for demonstrations, after which he gifted Mrs. Moore with one of his pieces.157

Given the relationships Labino continuously forged to promote studio glass throughout

Toledo and in the university system, Labino was someone Robert Putnam might refer to as a

“macher.” This is a Yiddish term for people who actively engage in formal organizations, these are the people who “make things happen,” and who are “the all around good citizens of their communities.”158 Fittingly, Labino was awarded a Distinguished Citizenship Award in 1974 for his contributions to both science and art.159 Labino certainly “made things happen,” for studio glass in Toledo. He acted as an important cog in the wheel of Toledo’s larger glass community— one that included a museum with commitment to local education and two universities that added

154 Ibid., for correspondence regarding Labino’s work on campus see Letter to Willard F. Wankelman from President William Travers Jerome (November, 13, 1967) Folder 8, Box 6, UA 002F, Center for Archival Collections, Bowling Green State University. 155 Marilyn Braatz, “Labino donates sculpture,” Sentinel Tribune (September 17, 1976), Box 8, Dominick Labino Collection, Rakow Research Library, Corning Museum of Glass. 156 Hollis A. Moore, Letter to Dominick Labino (July 6, 1976) Folder 1, Box 140, UA 002G Office of President Hollis A. Moore, Center for Archival Collections, Bowling Green State University. 157 Letter to Dominick Labino from President Hollis A. Moore (March 21, 1971) Folder 1, Box 140, UA 002G Office of President Hollis A. Moore, Center for Archival Collections, Bowling Green State University. 158 Putnam, 93-94. 159 “Institute to Honor Three for Community Service,” Toledo Blade (ca. February 1974) Folder 1, Box 140, UA 002G Office of President Hollis A. Moore, Center for Archival Collections, Bowling Green State University. 51 glassblowing to their curriculum. Another important thread in Toledo’s studio glass narrative included smaller groups such as local artists, clubs and collectors—many of which got their start in glass through Toledo’s larger educational organizations. They played a unique role in supporting glass art in the region.

52

CHAPTER III. ARTISTS, COLLECTORS AND GALLERIES

In December of 1979, the Glass Art Society compiled the First National Directory of

Production Studios. Initiated to gauge trends and rates of success across the Movement, the first portion of the directory included survey results which compared general operations, financial information, and equipment of the United States’ assortment of glass blowing studios.160 The second half included a listing of all known working production studios by state. Under Ohio, three of the state’s seven entries were located in and around the Toledo area. They included

Dominick Labino’s Labino Glass Laboratories, Rollin & Sandra Bodley’s Glass Apple Inc., and

Brian Lonsway’ Fortune Creative Glass Studio. 161 GAS itself admitted that the directory was limited to available knowledge, and its list by no means encompassed all the active studio artists in the Toledo. However, it was indicative of the region’s growing population of glassblowers, who continued to produce innovative and creative work in glass.

As previously discussed in Chapters One and Two, Dominick Labino proved himself a dedicated proponent of studio glass by sharing industrial knowledge and collaborating with the region’s educational institutions. Moreover, he himself was an artist who benefitted from

Toledo’s art network. Immediately following the first glass workshop in 1962, Labino started to focus his creative energy on experimenting with glass in his home studio. To avoid potential conflicts between his own individual pursuits in glass and Johns Manville’s corporate interests,

Labino also began seeking the rights to his home inventions. His background in the competitive glass industry had left him conscious of the potential legal repercussions associated with patent violations and information sharing. Therefore, in August of 1962, Labino asked for the rights to a

160 “First National Directory of Production Studios,” Glass Art Society Journal (1979) 109. Box 8, Dominick Labino Collection, Rakow Research Library, Corning Museum of Glass. 161 Ibid., 113. 53 small oil burner which he developed in his basement. The burner was primarily for use in a hobby-kiln he had also invented for ceramics, enameling and other “metallurgical purposes.”162

Although he was seeking a release to use the burner, Labino indicated that he would make the design available to Johns Manville should they later require it.163 This initial request for the hobby kiln soon evolved into an agreement that encompassed all of Labino’s individual inventions designed and developed at his personal workshop. After hiring the local law offices of

Malcom W. Fraser to represent his interests, Labino submitted the following statement to Johns

Manville’s Vice-President C.F. Rassweiler:

The agreement should…free me from any obligation to assign those inventions which are worked out on my own time and expense, and do not pertain specifically to the company’s products. I may choose, as in the case of the oil-burner, to give the company a royalty-free nonexclusive license, but there should be no binding obligation that I do so.164

While his statement made no direct reference to using these inventions for glass working, it should be noted that this request for creative rights occurred while Labino was developing his own glass workshop in Grand Rapids—including his innovative top-burning tank furnace design.165 His negotiations with Johns Manville mark the beginning of a professional shift in interest from industrial to artistic glass.

Labino officially retired from Johns Manville in 1965 to pursue his career as a glass artist; however, his artistic work and unique approach to glass continued to reflect his scientific and industrial roots. He was adamant that to produce a quality piece of glass art, the artist must be well versed in the chemical and physical properties of the material. His workshop was

162 Letter to W.L. VanDerbeek from Dominick Labino (August 18, 1962) Box 2, Dominick Labino Collection, Rakow Research Library, Corning Museum of Glass. 163 Ibid. 164 Letter to Vice-President Rassweiler from Dominick Labino (October 27, 1962) Box 2, Dominick Labino Collection, Rakow Research Library, Corning Museum of Glass. 165 Dominick Labino, Visual Art in Glass (Dubuque, Iowa: WM. C. Brown Company Publishers, 1968), 119. A complete description of Labino’s personal workshop can be found in Chapter 8, “The Artist and Glass.” 54 equipped with a laboratory, allowing Labino to test and research a variety of innovative glass compositions. In fact, he was the only studio glass artist of his time to formulate “his own glass compositions with specific properties in mind.”166 Mixing these innovative glass batches allowed

Labino to investigate color in glass, and he ultimately achieved a wide variety of extraordinary and visually stunning color formulas. Making colored glass from scratch set Labino apart from other studio artists, who primarily added color to clear glass following the melting process. The color Labino created with his hand-mixed formulas soon began to distinguish his work in the field, and the term “dichroic” was often used to describe his pieces. It referred to Labino glass’s unique ability to change color when placed before different sources and angles of light.167

Perhaps one of the most vivid examples of this quality can be found in Labino’s Emergence series. Pictured in Figure 6, Emergence XII features colorless glass that envelopes air bubbles and veils of colored, tinted glass. The piece varies from soft pink and golden hues to vibrant red depending on its light source.168 According to Otto Wittmann, “No other craftsman had achieved such extraordinary color relationships or subtle variations of tone.

Indeed, few artists in this field are able to combine colors in their molten state…”169

166 Dominick Labino. Exhibition Catalogue, n.d. Toledo Museum of Art. 167 “Fragile—Handle with Class,” The Plain Dealer Home Magazine (January 24, 1981), 3. Box 8, Dominick Labino Collection, Rakow Research Library, Corning Museum of Glass. 168 Julie Freniere, “Dominick Labino (1910-1987) Inventor and Glass Technologist,” Finding Aid, MSS-223, Dominick Labino Collection, Ward M. Canaday Center for Special Collections, University of Toledo. 169 Otto Wittmann, as quoted in Tahree Lane, “Dominick Labino: A Giant in art and technology,” Toledo Blade (June 10, 2012). 55

Figure 5: Dominick Labino, Emergence XII, 1972. Colorless and colored glass, tooled, enclosing air bubble and veil forms, H: 22.9cm (9in.); W 13cm (5 1/8in.); D: 8.6cm (3 3/8in.). Toledo Museum of Art.

Although researching unique color effects remained a passion for Labino throughout his career, Labino’s technical mastery continued to guide his other artistic achievements in glass. In

1969, Labino developed a process to cast molten-glass panels using a special annealing oven.

This method allowed Labino to construct Vitrana, a thirty-three panel polychrome glass mural

Labino donated to the TMA’s Glass Gallery.170 Further, Labino also published Visual Art in

Glass in 1968—one of the movement’s first publications that provided a complete history of glass as an art form from its origins in Egypt to its use in contemporary studio settings. Besides offering a thorough overview of glass’s evolution, the text gave a detailed description of the

170 “Publication Entry,” for Dominick Labino’s Vitrana (1969) Toledo Museum of Art Collection, accessed October 31, 2018 at http://emuseum.toledomuseum.org/objects/54418/vitrana;jsessionid=543D2077FCFC5954D B9538B7FBACF493?ctx=4650de4c-2e39-484f-ba87-2d7748ffae01&idx=355. 56 necessary tools, space and equipment an artist might need to begin an individual workshop.171

These accomplishments set Labino apart as a nationally recognized pioneer of the Studio Glass

Movement. However, he remained rooted in the Toledo community and continued to encourage other artists in the region—perhaps most directly, his apprentice, Baker O’Brien.

In 1975 Otto Wittmann helped arrange a co-op between Antioch College student Baker

O’ Brien and Labino.172 Interestingly, although she would eventually make a career out of glass blowing, O’Brien was first offered the opportunity to work with Labino specifically because she was not interested in glass. As O’Brien recalls of her original co-op plans: “I was actually a metals person and I wanted to do metal…they took in interest in me and what I was doing because I didn’t want to blow glass. So, who knew? That’s how I got my foot in the door.173

Dedicated to the individualistic ideal of studio glass, Labino’s workshop was not built to accommodate more than one glass artist. As Labino described in Visual Art, “There is only one man in this shop, and this is the basic idea of the artist who is involved with glass. Ideally, he should be able to control the entire creative process.”174 However after working for Labino for nine months, O’Brian’s inherent dexterity and enthusiasm convinced Labino to begin teaching her how to help with the furnaces in the glass studio.175

While exploring how to blow glass, O’Brien became a permanent member of the Labino household and soon developed into a talented glass artist under Labino’s tutelage. Strong, rich colors became her trademark, as she also learned how to hand-mix her own colored glass

171 Labino, Visual Art in Glass. 172 Lane. 173 “Baker O’Brien: Glass Maker,” Scenic Stops, WBGUTV interview aired on September 27, 2012. Accessed on October 31, 2018 at http://wbgutv.org/ss/video.php?id=22. 174 Labino, Visual Art in Glass, 118 175 “Baker O’Brien: Glass Maker.” 57 batches.176 O’ Brien established herself as a local glass artist, living on Labino’s farm and working with him in Grand Rapids for twelve years. After his death in 1987, she bought the

Labino property and continues to work in his studio today, using hand crafted color formulas.

O’Brien later recalled of Labino and her early years at his workshop: “He was the father I never had…I was that kid that came along that wanted to do it [blow glass].”177

The Toledo area was also home to Carl Kraft, a glass artist who, like Labino, got his start in the glass industry. A third-generation glassblower, Kraft began his glass career at age fourteen as an apprentice to his father at the Libbey factory. After working for a period in California,

Kraft and his wife moved back to Toledo where he was offered a job at Owens-Illinois.178 Even after his retirement, Kraft remained interested in glass and the Studio Glass Movement offered him the means to continue working with glass on an individual basis. In the Fall of 1972, Kraft and his wife opened The Glass Apple in Toledo, a studio where he could make and sell his glass art. It was named for the apple-shaped glass pieces he often made for his friends.179 While he specialized in paperweights, Kraft continued to produce glass pieces inspired by the skills he previously cultivated as an industrial glassblower.180 His gallery and studio became a destination for Toledo community groups and collectors.

Although declining health eventually motivated the Krafts to move to Michigan, the

Glass Apple remained an active studio thanks to fellow former O-I employee Rollin “Bud”

176 Baker O’Brien’s personal website, Labino Studio: Baker O’Brien, accessed October 31, 2018 at https://www.labinostudio.com/. 177 Baker O’ Brien as quoted in Tahree Lane, “Dominick Labino: A giant in art and technology,” Toledo Blade (June 10, 2012). 178 Carl Kraft, Cover page feature of 1978-1979 Program Schedule, Glass Collectors Club of Toledo, Scrapbook 2, Box 2, Mss. Coll. 311, Glass Collectors Club of Toledo Collection, Toledo-Lucas County Public Library. 179 Tom McDermott, “Rollin Bodley, ‘Glass City’ Glass Artist,” Talk of the Town 1, issue 11 (Nov. 1981) Scrapbook 2, Box 2, Mss. Coll. 311, Glass Collectors Club of Toledo Collection, Toledo-Lucas County Public Library. 180 Newspaper Clipping dated May 5, 1973. Publisher and author unknown, Scrapbook 1, Box 1, Mss. Coll. 311, Glass Collectors Club of Toledo Collection, Toledo-Lucas County Public Library. 58

Bodley. Having developed his own enthusiasm for glassblowing under Kraft, Bodley bought The

Glass Apple in 1977 and began making his own pieces part time. His wife Sandy also continued to run the front gallery. Pieces of Bodley’s work were offered for sale, in addition to glass works from other Ohio artists.181 Bodley’s own pieces were marked by his dedication to quality glass and ingredients. His wife once noted that “Bud’s standards are very high. As an engineer as well as an artist, he is very demanding.”182 These high-standards earned him both accolades in regional exhibitions and recognition in the larger Studio Glass Movement. However, Bodley was not only dedicated to promoting his own work. Throughout his career he continued to work closely with both the TMA and local arts groups to promote studio glass in the region.183

Another pioneering glass artist in the region was Toledo local Brian Lonsway, who started blowing glass as a student in TMA’s adult education program during the late 1960s. His background in technology research made him a unique asset to the classes, and he quickly made a name for himself within the Movement as both a quirky and innovative artist. Fellow glassblower Mark Matthews later commented that Lonsway was, “there right from the beginning, a really colorful, zany character. He was a wit, a personality, who poked fun at everyone who took themselves too seriously.”184 This zest was especially apparent in Lonsway’s unique contributions to early studio glass—he developed the world’s first completely mobile self-contained glass studio, pulled by a 1932 Chevrolet Sedan. Specifically designed to coordinate with the Sedan, the trailer housing this mobile studio included matching fenders and wheels.185 Christened “Fortune Studio Glassworks,” Lonsway routinely set up his studio on

181 McDermott. 182 Ibid. 183 Obituary of Rollin Bodley (1942-2018), Toledo Blade (April 15, 2018). 184 Mark Matthews as quoted in “Glass artisan admired for his skill, zany wit,” Toledo Blade (November 16, 2001). 185 Oral history interview with Fritz Dreisbach. 59

Toledo’s South Detroit Avenue, where he created a variety of blown glass pieces, as well as glass canes, paper weights and works.186 He operated this mobile studio in and around the Toledo area for ten years, including one demonstration in a city parade. His former instructor Fritz Dreisbach still enjoys describing Lonsway’s parade demonstration:

He would reheat while he was walking along, and then to neck the piece in he would run and catch up to the front of the trailer and jump up on the trailer where there was a bench with arms and jacks. And he would then neck it in, and then after he had it necked in he'd jump off the trailer, and as the trailer went past him he would stick the bubble in and start reheating again and walk along at whatever parade speed is, three and a half miles an hour.187

Although Lonsway eventually dismantled his mobile unit, he rebuilt several home studios over the course of his career and remained a dedicated glassblower for the remainder of his life.188

Toledo glassblowers like Lonsway, Bodley, Kraft, O’Brien, and Labino each contributed their unique creative to the larger studio glass movement; however, they did not succeed alone. Backing from glass firms and educational organizations certainly helped establish many of the region’s local glass artists, and while their contributions continued to benefit the region’s status as a glass center, it was also smaller groups of collectors and galleries that assisted in supporting the Movement. Thus, Toledo’s glass art community was a complex network of relationships, held together by both artists and the community entities which supported them. This multi-faceted aspect of Toledo’s art community suggests that it established what Putnam describes as “bridging” social capital.189 That is, rather than being exclusive, the region’s glass community embraced a wide variety of social backgrounds and interests in glass.

According to Putnam, bridging social capital can be especially beneficial, because “it can

186 Glass Collectors Club of Toledo 1976 Newsletter (1976) Scrapbook 2, Box 2, Mss. Coll. 311, Glass Collectors Club of Toledo Collection, Toledo-Lucas County Public Library. 187 Fritz Dreisbach, Oral history interview with Fritz Dreisbach. 188 Ibid. 189 Putnam, 23. 60 generate broader identities and reciprocity.”190 He notes that it is often acquaintances from different social circles who are ultimately more valuable in terms of reaching professional goals.191 This was the case for Toledo’s glass artists, who often coordinated with a variety of local people and organizations to grow their careers.

The formation of Toledo’s chapter of the National Early American Glass Club is especially indicative of the benefits a wide network offered to glass artists. Hosted by the TMA, seventy-five locals attended the Club’s first meeting in 1968.192 Membership invitations were extended to “collectors, students and all others interested in American Glass.”193 However, as indicated in the organization’s name, the club began its Toledo programming with a primary focus in collectable industrial glass, especially that of local glass corporations like Libbey. The

Club’s first Chairman, Carl Fauster, was himself a former employee of both Owens-Illinois and the Libbey factory, as well as an avid collector of Brilliant Period Cut Glass.194 Tours of local glass factories, lectures on ancient and early twentieth-century techniques, and displays of member’s antique glass collections dominated the first several years of the Club’s scheduling.

However, the newly emerging Studio Glass Movement was still on the organization’s radar.

Studio glass was first introduced to members, in part, through Dominick Labino, who served as Vice President of the Club from 1968-1969 and President from 1969-1970. In 1968, he hosted a field trip for the Club at his personal workshop in Grand Rapids, where members were

190 Putnam, 24. 191 Putnam, 23 192 “Glass Club is Formed in Toledo,” Toledo Blade (March 2, 1968) Scrapbook 1, Box 1, Mss. Coll. 311, Glass Collectors Club of Toledo Collection, Toledo-Lucas County Public Library. 193 1968-1969 Program Schedule, Early American Glass Club of Toledo (ca. 1968) Scrapbook 1, Box 1, Mss. Coll. 311, Glass Collectors Club of Toledo Collection, Toledo-Lucas County Public Library. 194 “About the Author,” (ca. 1968) Clipping included in Scrapbook 1, Box 1, Mss. Coll. 311, Glass Collectors Club of Toledo Collection, Toledo-Lucas County Public Library. 61 able to witness “glass actually blown and worked by a skilled master Craftsman.”195 Following the field trip, the Club continued to support Labino artistic career by encouraging members to attend local exhibitions of his work.196 Interest in studio glass was further cultivated among members through the support of the TMA’s Glass National exhibitions and the ground-breaking

Glass Crafts Building. Both events were featured in the Club’s monthly newsletter, which expressly stated: “we compliment and heartily support the Museum’s program of glass workshops and national competitive exhibitions.”197 For many of the museum’s members, studio glass represented the revival of the molten glass techniques represented in many of ancient and industrial pieces they collected. 198

Perhaps the most palpable evidence of the club’s growing support for studio glass came in 1973, when the organization’s Board unanimously voted to change its name to the Glass

Collectors Club of Toledo. As indicated in a letter to members, the name change was “in keeping with the broader interest of the members and to avoid the use of the highly restrictive designation of ‘Early American Glass.’”199 Following this name change, the Club began scheduling a wider variety of activities which featured local glass artists. Programming included guest lectures from pioneering glassblowers like Harvey Littleton and Toledoan Leon Applebaum, as well as visits to local glass workshops such as Carl Kraft’s Glass Apple and Lonsway’s portable studio.200

195 Early American Glass Club of Toledo June Field Trip Memo (1968) Scrapbook 1, Box 1, Mss. Coll. 311, Glass Collectors Club of Toledo Collection, Toledo-Lucas County Public Library. 196 Early American Glass Club of Toledo Newsletter (September 1969) 2, Scrapbook 1, Box 1, Mss. Coll. 311, Glass Collectors Club of Toledo Collection, Toledo-Lucas County Public Library. 197 Early American Glass Club of Toledo Newsletter (March 1969) 2. Scrapbook 1, Box 1, Mss. Coll. 311, Glass Collectors Club of Toledo Collection, Toledo-Lucas County Public Library. 198 Ibid. 199 Letter to Members from E. Benson Dennis, Jr., Early American Class Club of Toledo (April 2, 1973) Scrapbook 1, Box 1, Mss. Coll. 311, Glass Collectors Club of Toledo Collection, Toledo-Lucas County Public Library. 200 For specific program details see Glass Collector Club of Toledo’s 1976 & 1982 Newsletters, Scrapbook 2, Box 2, Mss. Coll. 311, Glass Collectors Club of Toledo Collection, Toledo-Lucas County Public Library and Clipping dated May 5, 1973. Publisher and author unknown, Scrapbook 1, Box 1, Mss. Coll. 311, Glass Collectors Club of Toledo Collection, Toledo-Lucas County Public Library. 62

Many of the artists featured in these events were also members of the Club themselves, which served to further strengthen the reciprocal relationship between local artists and collectors.

In 1974, for example, member and artist Carl Kraft produced 500 commemorative glass paperweights honoring the 85th anniversary of industrial glass in Toledo. The weights, made from clear and blue glass, featured the symbolic pioneer blockhouse from Toledo’s Official City

Seal and an inscription that included the phrase, “Glass Capital of the World.” 201 Kraft donated the weights to raise money for the Club, and all proceeds from their sales were put towards bringing in guest speakers and the organization’s expense account.202 This fundraising effort was a resounding success, and the Club quickly sold out of Kraft’s donation, except for one paperweight, which was gifted to the Toledo Museum of Art’s collection. In response to the

Club’s donation Wittmann commented, “We are happy to have this piece in the Museum archives, as an example of this limited production. We are pleased to see the growth of the Club and the interest in glass which it has engendered in our community. My best wishes for the continuing success of the Glass Collector’s club.”203 Wittmann’s observation about the organization’s presence in Toledo was certainly valid. By 1974, the Club’s membership had increased to 234.204

Growth continued into the next decade, as did the organization’s commitment to encouraging local enthusiasm for glass. Brochures were distributed at Community Information

Fairs, the County Library and the Toledo Area Chamber of Commerce. In his 1980 message to

201 “Glass Club Issues Paperweight,” American Collector (January 1974) 9, Scrapbook 1, Box 1, Mss. Coll. 311, Glass Collectors Club of Toledo Collection, Toledo-Lucas County Public Library. 202 Ibid. 203 Otto Wittmann as quoted in the Glass Collectors Club of Toledo Newsletter (January 1974) Scrapbook 1, Box 1, Mss. Coll. 311, Glass Collectors Club of Toledo Collection, Toledo-Lucas County Public Library. 204 Introductory page to first scrapbook, Glass Collectors Club of Toledo, n.d., Scrapbook 1, Box 1, Mss. Coll. 311, Glass Collectors Club of Toledo Collection, Toledo-Lucas County Public Library.

63 members, President Richard Joseph summed up the Club’s increasing commitment to glass promotion. He stated, “We must take the message of glass to more people. TOLEDO IS THE

GLASS CAPITAL OF THE WORLD. We as members of the Glass Collectors Club of Toledo have an obligation to enrich our community in as many ways as possible.”205 This mission certainly promoted studio glass sales for local artists. An increase in membership pointed to an increase in potential collectors, and club sponsored field trips to local studios and exhibitions offered opportunities for members to purchase contemporary glass for their own collections.

However, the Club as a whole also served as an important buyer, as procuring local artists’ work offered fundraising opportunities for the growing organization. In 1980, the Club purchased fifty of local glassblower Mark Hartung’s “Jack-in-the-Pulpit” style . After acquiring the vases, the Club conducted a promotional “one-time” sale of Hartung’s signed pieces. A local student with great potential as a glass artist, Hartung had begun his glassblowing career under the tutelage of Tom McGlauchlin in the TMA’s joint program with UT. Members were encouraged to begin “an early collection of this soon to be renowned artist’s works.”206

Other works purchased and sold by the Club included richly colored handblown vases with lily- pad designs created by BGSU alumni Harry Boyer and chambered forms designed by Brian

Lonsway.207

As Florida points out, “although creativity is often viewed as an individual phenomenon it is an inescapable social process. Even the lone creator relies heavily on contributors and

205 Richard G. Joseph, President’s Message (ca. 1980) Scrapbook 2, Box 2, Mss. Coll. 311, Glass Collectors Club of Toledo Collection, Toledo-Lucas County Public Library. 206 Memo to Members of the Glass Collector’s Club of Toledo from the Ways and Means Committee (May 13, 1980) Scrapbook 2, Box 2, Mss. Coll. 311, Glass Collectors Club of Toledo Collection, Toledo-Lucas County Public Library. 207 Glass Collectors Club of Toledo Meeting Schedule (January 19, 1982) and Richard G. Joseph, President’s Message (ca. 1980) Scrapbook 2, Box 2, Mss. Coll. 311, Glass Collectors Club of Toledo Collection, Toledo-Lucas County Public Library. 64 collaborators.”208 The success of Toledo’s studio glass artists, for example, relied in part on their ability to network with and receive monetary support from local collectors, whether they be individuals or larger groups like the Glass Collector’s Club. Although not focused chiefly on glass, another community organization that took an interest in the Studio Glass Movement was the Toledo Club. In 1981 the group’s Arts Committee requested a special presentation from

Dominick Labino on glass collecting. Part of a larger panel lecture entitled “Collecting

Collectables,” Labino’s talk addressed how to collect glass, investment opportunities in the medium, and where to find more sources of information on the topic.209 A special exhibition that included twenty of Labino’s glass pieces accompanied the presentation, with prices ranging from

300 to 900 dollars.210 It is important to note here, that relative to the Fine Arts market of the time, prices for quality glass art pieces like Labino’s remained low in the middle half of the twentieth- century. In fact, Labino’s prices illustrated the high end of the glass art market for small sculptural pieces. It was not uncommon for groups like the Glass Collectors Club to sell pieces to members for rates as low as $26.211 Thus, collecting quality pieces of studio glass remained feasible for Toledo’s primarily middle-class community.212

Outside of membership in local arts clubs, community members interested in glass art could also learn about studio glass and purchase pieces through the Toledo Area Glass Guild

(TAGG), located in the city’s Crosby Gardens. The TAGG opened its hot glass studio in 1982,

208 Florida, 22. 209 Letter to Dominick Labino from Lawrence G. Bell, Art Committee Chairman (August 28, 1981) Box 15, Dominick Labino Collection, Rakow Research Library, Corning Museum of Glass. 210 List of Objects on Exhibit at the Toledo Club September 1 to November 1, 1981 (1981) Box 15, Dominick Labino Collection, Rakow Research Library, Corning Museum of Glass. 211 Memo to Members of the Glass Collector’s Club of Toledo from the Ways and Means Committee (May 13, 1980) Scrapbook 2, Box 2, Mss. Coll. 311, Glass Collectors Club of Toledo Collection, Toledo-Lucas County Public Library. 212 The United States Census Bureau reported Toledo’s 1979 median income at $16, 596, just above the national average. General Social and Economic Characteristics: Ohio, Section 1 of 2 (US Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census: 1980) 37-24. 65 during the 20th anniversary of the first glass workshops.213 Funding for the building’s construction was raised by auctioning off locally blown glass pieces, one of which was donated by Dominick Labino.214 Local artist Rollin Bodley also consulted on the project.215 Truly a community project, the TAGG received complete backing from City of Toledo’s Division of

Forestry and Open Space Planning, the department responsible for Crosby Gardens. In a letter to

Labino thanking him more his support on the TAGG studio, Commissioner Richard Boers stated,

“We at Crosby will enthusiastically support any activity of Toledo Area Glass Guild…The Glass

Capital of the World certainly should have the world’s most outstanding glass crafts area.”216

The TAGG studio’s successful opening, and the inaugural exhibition for local artists that followed, further validates the existence of a strong arts community—one both dedicated to promoting studio glass and rich in social capital

While support from community groups and individuals remained significant for local glass artists, Toledo’s glass corporations also established themselves as important collectors and exhibitors of studio glass. Under the direction of Chairman Harold Boeschenstein, Owens-

Corning Fiberglass became the first local corporation to begin collecting contemporary works of art by local artists in 1969. This was no surprise, given that Boeschenstein had already shown a history of enthusiasm for the arts by serving as President of the Toledo Museum of Art.217 It was also a donation from Boeschenstein that allowed the TMA to build a new, cutting edge, two- story gallery in 1970, designed specifically for the safe exhibition of both historical and

213 TAGG Postcard to Mr. & Mrs. Dominick Labino (1982) Box 15, Dominick Labino Collection, Rakow Research Library, Corning Museum of Glass. 214 Letter to Mr. and Mrs. Labino from Kathy McCarthy (September 20, 1981) Box 15, Dominick Labino Collection, Rakow Research Library, Corning Museum of Glass. 215 Obituary of Rollin Bodley (1942-2018), Toledo Blade (April 15, 2018). 216 Letter to Dominick and Libby Labino from Richard W. Boers (September 22, 1980) Box 15, Dominick Labino Collection, Rakow Research Library, Corning Museum of Glass. 217 “Contemporary Art Collected by Glass Firm,” Toledo Blade (February 9, 1969) Box 13, Dominick Labino Collection, Rakow Research Library, Corning Museum of Glass. 66 contemporary glass pieces.218 These displays of support for the local glass and art communities set a standard for Toledo’s industrial leaders, and Owens-Illinois soon followed Boeschenstein’s lead as both a corporate collector and exhibitor of local artists’ work.

Owens-Illinois’s Corporate Relations Branch began modestly collecting contemporary glass in 1973, with the purchase of three handblown pieces from Dominick Labino at a twenty percent discount.219 However, it was under the later direction of talented curator Peggy Grant that O-I was able to establish a significant collection and create large scale exhibitions. Hired in

1981 to build the company’s corporate collection, Grant assembled hundreds of quality pieces both in contemporary glass and a variety of other media.220 She also curated an assortment of sponsored exhibitions which presented both local and visiting artists’ work in the Owens-Illinois

Arts Center, located at the entrance to the company’s Toledo headquarters. Contemporary glass pieces were a popular feature in many of Grant’s exhibitions, including the community focused

“Art Alive” exhibit in 1983. The show presented acquisitions made by the Toledo Federation of

Art Societies throughout its history, and it included works from local glassblowers Jack Schmidt,

Leon Applebaum, Tom McGlauchlin, Dominick Labino and Brian Lonsway.221 Clearly recognizing the value of a well-connected arts community, Grant made the following statement about the show’s intentions: “This exhibition is a rare occasion…Truly, timeless, it is indicative of the spirit which makes ‘Toledo Alive’ and serves to promote a mutual understanding between the artists and the community.”222

218 Louise Bruner, “A Great Gallery for Great Glass,” Sunday Magazine (April 26, 1970) Box 8, Dominick Labino Collection, Rakow Research Library, Corning Museum of Glass. 219 Invoice from Dominick Labino to Mr. Beardly of Owens-Illinois Corporate Relations (December 13, 1973) Box 8, Dominick Labino Collection, Rakow Research Library, Corning Museum of Glass. 220 Roberta Gedert, “Well-deserved spotlight exhibit to feature Grant’s collection from scores of artists,” Toledo Blade (November 14, 2017). 221 “Art Alive” Exhibit Brochure (July 13- September 5, 1983) Box 8, Dominick Labino Collection, Rakow Research Library, Corning Museum of Glass. 222 Ibid. 67

Even after leaving her curatorial position within the glass industry, Grant continued to connect local glass artists to the greater Toledo community. In 1993, Grant founded what would eventually become the city’s oldest independent art gallery in the Warehouse district of downtown Toledo—the 20 North Gallery. Its mission was to provide local artists “with a commercial venue to display and sell their work,” while also “assisting collectors in building both corporate and private collections.”223 The local glass artists Grant connected with during her time at O-I soon found a place in this new venue, and the gallery sponsored its first Glass Month in 1996. It featured a variety of pieces from first and second generation studio glass artists, including Toledo locals Baker O’Brien, Jack Schmidt, Shawn Messenger and Tom

McGlauchlin.224 Glass Month exhibits became a regular part of the gallery in the following decade, in addition to occasional shows featuring individual glass artists.225 While simultaneously supporting the sale of glass from her gallery, Grant herself collected blown studio glass pieces. Her personal collection also included pieces from Tom McGlauchlin, as well as

Fritz Dreisbach.226

A quality of life survey conducted in 1982 found, “considerable community pride among residents in the Toledo area.” The study further reported that a “majority of greater Toledoans

(83%) feel proud when telling people from other parts of the country that they are from the

Toledo area.”227 While the specific origins of these feelings were not revealed in the study, one

223 Archival pages of the 20 North Gallery’s first official website, accessed November 2, 2018 at www.20northgallery.net. 224 Glass Month ’96, 20 North Gallery Flyer (April 6-May 5, 1996) Exhibits: 1993-2003, 20 North Gallery, accessed November 2 at https://20northgallery.com/exhibits-1993-2003/. 225 For a complete list of 20 North’s exhibits which featured studio glass see Exhibits: 1993-2003, 20 North Gallery at https://20northgallery.com/exhibits-1993-2003/. in addition to Archival pages of the 20 North Gallery’s first official website, accessed November 2, 2018 at www.20northgallery.net. 226 Dorothy Price and Peggy Grant Collection, University of Toledo Libraries Virtual Exhibit. Accessed November 2, 2018 at http://www.utoledo.edu/library/virtualexhibitions/pgvx/overview.html#. 227 Greater Toledo Survey Report: 1982 Quality of Life Survey (Population & Society Research Center: Bowling Green State University, December 1982) 1. 68 might surmise that, for Toledo’s art glass community, Toledo’s reputation as the birthplace of studio glass remained a source of that pride. Whether it was through regional collector’s clubs, corporate exhibitions or private galleries, Toledo’s glass artists were met an enthusiastic, if not complex network of community members willing to offer their support in the second half of the twentieth century.

69

CONCLUSION The birth of the Studio Glass in Movement in Toledo was ultimately the result of a strong social network. The high-rate of social capital in the region allowed for successful collaboration between local industry, educational organizations, artists, collectors and clubs which produced a strong studio glass community. However, it could be argued that by the turn of the century this art community had significantly weakened, as did its status as a leading hub of creativity and innovation within the greater glass community. In 2012, Seattle Magazine named its city the

“Epicenter of Glass,” and described Dale Chihuly’s local Pilchuck School as the premier glassblowing school in the nation.228 While the article named Harvey Littleton and other influential glass artists as the pioneers of the Studio Glass Movement, Toledo itself was never mentioned in its discussion of the movement’s origins. On the East Coast, New York boasts the

Corning Museum of Glass, the largest and most comprehensive glass museum in the world. The

Corning Museum also houses the Rakow Research Library, the globe’s leading research facility for glass art and glass making techniques, along with multiple studio spaces for glass demonstrations, lectures and classes that see over half a million visitors every year. 229 The

Rhode Island School of Design as well as the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Maine also offer premier glassblowing programs which attract glass students from around the world.

There is no single nor concrete answer as to why Toledo’s status as a glass hub was eventually overshadowed by the East and West Coasts. However, several events in the last few decades reveal circumstances and trends which made it difficult for Toledo’s art community to collaborate and maintain the high-rates of social capital that once supported studio glass in the

228 “How Seattle Became the Epicenter of Glass Art,” Seattle Magazine (May 2012) accessed November 4, 2018 at https://www.seattlemag.com/article/how-seattle-became-epicenter-glass-art. 229 “About Us,” Corning Museum of Glass, accessed September 16, 2018, https://www.cmog.org. 70 region. Local glass companies, for example, were hit hard by the energy crisis of the 1970s. The oil shortages caused by the OPEC Embargo and other Middle Eastern conflicts were especially detrimental to the glass firms because they relied upon gas to heat their furnaces. In addition, the high price of gas caused a decrease in the demand for automobiles and thus, windshields—one of the primary products for companies like Libbey-Owens-Ford.230 Rather than having the time or capital to invest in developing new glass product lines for the growing market of studio artists, as one might expect of good corporate citizens, Toledo’s glass firms were scrambling to both save their established, profit earning goods and generate new products which promoted energy efficiency. Later economic turmoil also necessitated Owens-Illinois cease its collection and exhibition of studio glass art, as downsizing necessitated that the firm sell the corporation’s local art collection.231

The TMA’s relationship with Toledo’s glass art community was also strained by the gas shortage when, in 1975, the Museum temporarily shut down its glassblowing program to save on fuel costs. Tom McGlauchlin, head of the TMA’s glass program at the time, felt that his suggestions for alternative solutions were ignored, and that he had not been given enough notice about the decision.232 At the urging of Museum administrators, the program was reconstructed to promote the use of cost-saving cold-working classes and the glassblowing studio was reopened the next year with a limited schedule for hot glass work.233 However, McGlauchlin and other glass blowers who used the Museum’s facilities were likely left questioning the its commitment to the program, thus diminishing the trust required to maintain high-social capital.

230 Floyd, 163. 231 Gedert. 232 Memo to Glassblowing File (March 17, 1975) Folder 4, Box 1, Glass Workshop Records, Toledo Museum of Art Library. 233 Memo to Otto Wittmann from Charles Gunther (April 11,1975) Folder 4, Box 1, Glass Workshop Records, Toledo Museum of Art Library. 71

Further financial setbacks caused the Museum to completely eliminate its joint education program with Toledo University in 1984. According to McGlauchlin, TMA Director Roger

Mandle, decided to cut the glass program in order to cover the cost of a yearly budget shortfall.234 This decision may have been made in part because Mandle did not have the same relationship with or personal investment in studio glass as his predecessor, Wittmann.

McGlauchlin notes that Mandle had not been involved with the first glass workshops, nor had he ever met its founder Harvey Littleton.235 Adding to community perception that the TMA was distancing itself from studio glass was Louise Bruner Orr’s 1985 Toledo Blade article entitled

“Museum’s Leadership In Glass Art Movement Slipping Away.” Included in the article were statements condemning the Museum’s receding commitment to studio glass from local artists

Jack Schmidt, McGlauchlin and Brian Lonsway, who remarked, “They [the TMA] did their part in providing a building and then the museum walked away. I see a remarkable indifference on the part of the museum.”236 Although the Museum issued a private rebuttal to the Toledo Blade, which reaffirmed its commitment to glass, the damage had already been done. Based on the statements from Schmidt, McGlauchlin and Lonsway, many local artists clearly felt alienated by the Museum.237

In terms of local artists and their collectors, a generational shift may also have contributed to a decline in Toledo’s art community. Many of the pioneering artists who got their start in Toledo, and who initiated community enthusiasm and engagement in the medium, have

234 Oral History Interview with Tom McGlauchlin, 2006 October 13, conducted by Joan Falconer Byrd, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, accessed November 7, 2018 at https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-tom-mcglauchlin-13563#transcript. 235 Ibid. 236 Louise Bruner Orr, “Museum’s Leadership in Glass Art Movement Slipping Away,” Toledo Blade (September 22, 1985) Box 15, Dominick Labino Collection, Rakow Research Library, Corning Museum of Glass. 237 Letter to Mr. Bernard Judy from Roger Mandle (October 3, 1985) Box 15, Dominick Labino Collection, Rakow Research Library, Corning Museum of Glass. 72 since passed away. The shoes of a community “macher” like Dominick Labino, who died in

1987, were difficult to fill, especially given that the most innovative glass artists were increasingly being drawn to elite programs on the East and West Coasts. In addition, as members within local art clubs aged, their numbers were not actively replenished, as is suggested by the

Glass Collectors Club of Toledo’s eventual disbandment circa 2006.238

Toledo’s studio glass community and the relationships which supported it have gradually eroded from their peak in the middle half of the twentieth century. However, there still remains an active studio glass presence within Toledo—one with the potential for growth and the reestablishment of the strong community networks and high-standards that first led to the Studio

Glass Movement’s success. For instance, Toledo’s glass industries are once again becoming active contributors to the Movement. Libbey, Owens-Corning, Owens-Illinois, , and

Johns Manville were all corporate sponsors of the 2012 GAS conference. In addition, the Toledo

Museum of Art has reaffirmed its commitment to glass by opening the Glass Pavilion in 2006—a state-of-the art facility specifically for the display and care of ancient to contemporary glass pieces. The Pavilion also includes a working studio for demonstrations and public classes. As for local universities, UT has still not renewed its glass program with the museum; however, BGSU has developed both strong BFA and MFA curricula in glass. BGSU’s students also have the opportunity to participate in the regional advantages Toledo offers for glassblowers, both through field trips to the TMA’s extensive glass collections and visits to local glass factories.

Pilkington North America Inc. offered graduate students tours of its facility in the Spring of

2018, for example.239 Independent artists are also becoming more prevalent in the region. Jack

238 Scrapbook 5, Box 5, Mss. Coll. 311, Glass Collectors Club of Toledo Collection, Toledo Lucas County Public Library. 239 The author attended this tour. 73

Schmidt and Shawn Messenger operate a workshop downtown, Baker ‘O Brien still operates out of Labino’s studio in Grand Rapids outside of Toledo, and local production studios such as

Firenation and the Gathered Glassblowing Studio offer glassblowing classes and demonstrations, in addition to displaying local artist’s work and creating custom pieces.

Ultimately, the reemergence of a strong studio glass community has the potential to benefit the city of Toledo. As Richard Florida’s creative class theory suggests, cities with exciting, creative people tend to attract the innovative people and industries which now promote regional economic success. Thus, studio glass has the potential to serve as a force of attraction, to both draw in and retain productive people and industries within the community. Like many cities in the rustbelt, Toledo has undergone repeated and harsh periods of economic decline since the mid-twentieth century. It is in need of revitalization. While the promotion of studio glass will likely not serve as complete antidote to the city’s economic ills, it is the hope of this author that both the City of Toledo and its studio glass community will continue to collaborate and build on one another.

74

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