In Western culture the hierarchy of status among the arts was established during the Renaissance. Functional or decorative arts had a minor ranking behind painting and sculpture. Craft objects, no matter how beautifully designed and made, were associated with mundane, everyday life.

The term “crafts as art” refers to the elevation of craft material to art. Until World War II crafts and art
were easy to tell apart. Art was generally made of art materials and had serious content. Crafts were made of craft materials (wool, wood, pottery) and were designed to be used. During the 1950’s the lines separating art and craft began to disappear. Craftspersons began creating nonfunctioning objects which became hard to distinguish from sculpture. Likewise, many artists became interested introducing functional items and hybrid art/non-art forms.

During this period (1950’s – 1960’s), sculptural nonfunctional vessels made of glass or ceramics fell into an ambiguous category leading to dismissal by the art press. Critics, curators, collectors and dealers resisted classifying them as art.

In 1974, the Corning Museum made a decision to aggressively collect contemporary glass with a focus on glass sculpture. Other museums world wide followed their trend in the 1980’s. Museums were unsure how, or if, glass sculpture fit into their more traditional systems. Exhibits usually were in the form of a general survey of objects with the material being the commonality. Public awareness developed slowly.

In the glass movement, the 1970’s was a period of rapid advance in technology and technique discovery. Teachers learned as they taught. With more control over glass form, artists could concentrate more on ideas rather than technique. In an attempt to link form to sculpture, artists, such as Marvin Lipofsky, created pieces with no function. Richard Marquis and others noted the similarity of millefiore and Op Art patterning. Bold colors and psychedelic inspired graphic designs were popular.

Dale Chihuly was an early leader in experimenting with the sculptural possibilities of glass. Like Harvey Littleton, he was a leader in glass education and promotion of glass as a sculptural medium. The Pilchuck School proved to be one of the most innovative and influential forces in contemporary glass. Visiting artists not affiliated with glass investigating the potential use of the material in their own work helped bridge the gap between glass as craft and glass as art.