Hotshop: Placing the Genesis of American Studio Glassblowing

This article investigates the nineteenth-century craft idealism and twentieth-century aesthetic materialities in the American Studio Glass Movement (1962–). Second-generation studio glassblowers are cited as having equipped the glassblowing studio with a “how-to” technical knowledge system learned in Venice, Italy. Drawing on four years of ethnographic research, this article investigates the origin, transmission, and integration of this logic into early expressionist studio glass in the context of both American progressive and counterculture values. In doing so, it shifts the historical narrative of studio glass away from individuals to broader social forces.