While still a student at the Rhode Island School of Design, James (Jamie) Carpenter had a unique opportunity to take part in a collaborative exhibition with his mentor, Dale Chihuly, entitled "Dale Chihuly / Jamie Carpenter / Glass",  at the Museum of Contemporary Crafts (MCC) in 1971. Together, the two talented glassblowers created a 500-square-foot environment of white opaque glass with argon and neon gases on black vinyl. The installation was so remarkable it made the cover of Craft Horizons magazine. 

Perhaps the most fascinating thing about this joint effort is that Carpenter had only been blowing glass for a year and a half prior to the opening of the MCC exhibition. Carpenter, who was studying botanical illustration at RISD, was introduced to glassblowing when Chihuly recruited him to assist with a series of illuminated glass flowers. Chihuly must have recognized the young artist's potential, because in the years that followed the two worked closely on a number of experimental glass projects.

For the MCC show, curator Paul J. Smith and videographer Bob Hanson paid a visit to Chihuly and Carpenter in the studio at the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts during the summer before the show opened. In the video they created and screened as part of the exhibit, Chihuly narrates as he and Carpenter are shown fashioning goblets and other objects using a mold, jack, and paddle, as well as techniques that include blowing, marvering, and shaping.

Thanks to a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, this rare video footage from the ACC archives has been digitized and in coordination with the recent article in American Craft on Carpenter, we're sharing it here with you for the first time. Enjoy!