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186 }{Ifl ICNAL BUTTO}I BI.II,I,ETNNI July 1998

spanned Victorian tastes, ad nouveau, and art deco. After Carder's death,
William followed with great interest the experimentation of Harvey Littleton
and Dominick Labino, leaders in the budding studio glass movement. lt
was then that lorio realized his creative talents demanded qreater arlistic
expression.

Yn 1965, at the age of 51, William lorio concluded that ultimate
fulfillment would come only when he, too, could skillfully coax a gather of
molten glass from a furnace and create his own objects of beauty which
would transcend time. In a lecture presented before the New Jersey State
Button Society in September of 1972, lorio recalled "since 1965,
whenever I could find the time from my regular seven-days-a-week job, I
have made spun and blown novelty glassware, scientific apparatus for
industrial concerns, paperweight buttons of all types, and miniature
paperweights." He worked tirelessly developing his hot glass skills and in
1966 added lampworking (manipulating glass in the flame) to his list of
accomplishments [Figure 1].
During this same 1972leclure, lorio voiced frustration at the tradition
among glassmakers to jealously guard their secrets. He liked to point out
that during the Middle Ages, Venetian glass aftists, having been forbidden
by law to emigrate, were removed to Murano in order to assure that glass
formulas and techniques would remain secrets. "Even today," he
continued, "the glassmaker who mixes the batch generally does so behind
closed doors. The formulas in any given factory are very closely guarded."
He sensed among some of his peers a similar attitude of "Let 'em learn it
the hard way like I did "
Although a few of lorio's contemporaries were reluctant to divulge
techniques and formulas which had taken them considerable time to
acquire, there were others who would contribute a wealth of information
and encouragement. Among them was a glassmaker from Pittsburgh by
the name of Jacques lsrael (1889- 1969) who was very generous in sharing
his knowledge with lorio. In fact, in 1963, two years prior to lorio's serious
experimentations in glass, lsrael wrote a detailed article for the PCA
Bulletin entitled "The Aft of Glass Paperweight Making".

tlnolher lampwork artist. Ray Keller of Whitehouse. NJ, rs grven
credit for helping lorio deal with the problems of contraction, expansion,
and color. An Austrian glass blower, August Hofbauer (1882-1968), whom
lorio affectionately called "Pop," was willing to share some of his glass
formulas as he had done eadier with Charles Kaziun (1919-1992). lorio
also traded imporlant information with John Gooderham (1930- of Sault
)
Ste. Marie, Canada who was becoming a major p.w. artist (paperweight
buttons are called p.w.s by button collectors). Gooderham had learned the
secret of making double overlay desk weights from established p.w. and
desk weight artist Ronald Hansen (1910-1985) of Mackinaw City,
Michigan, In 1970, he shared that technique with lorio in exchange for