r - The Metropolitan Museum of Art

lass has become a major medium of
the Studio Craft Movement since
1962, when a seminar held at the Toledo
Museum of Art opened up the possibilities
of glassblowing to the studio artist,
ending its dependence on industry. The
seminar was led by the ceramic artist and
educator Harvey Littleton (b. 1922), who
has been the driving force in the development
of what is virtually a new profession,
in which artists choose glass as their
exclusive medium and master the
gruelling skills of the gaffer Now retired
from his post at the University of
Wisconsin. Littleton continues to produce
powerful abstract works, such as his
1976 Amber Crested Form, a giant folded
tube of blown glass crowned with a
second heavy gather A second generation
of glass artists is represented by Tom
Patti (b. 1943) whose novel method, used
in Banded Flair of 1977, involves stacked
plate glass, heated to the point that it can
be blown into vessels in which vestiges of
the initial structure become decoration.
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Amber Crested Form. H. 16/2 in. Gift of
William D. and Rose D. Barker, 1978.438.
Banded Flair. H. 4 3/ in. Gift of Douglas
Heller and Josh Rosenblatt. 1978.25
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