I believe that the Studio Glass Movement will prove to be one of the most important events in the history of glass. For a phenomenon that did not exist fifteen years ago, its impact worldwide has been astonishing. Although it is dangerous to generalize, I would like to tell what I think makes the Studio Movement an important historical happening and what I think are the seeds of its strengths — and possibly of its destruction.
To begin with, the affluence of our first world society has made the Movement possible not only in the form of parental subsidy to students as well as enough money in the marketplace itself to buy their wares, but in the support of the universities that melt hot glass and those cultural institutions like the Museum of Contemporary Crafts, The Toledo Museum of Art, and The Corning Museum of Glass, which focus on the glass artist.
Second, the glass artists' knowledge of what is going on in the art world is incredibly sophisticated — in fact, it has become almost impossible to be parochial.