Ben Moore 1952 - 2001
Moore is considered one of the most influential American glassblowers of the 20th century, not only for achieving a rare level of skill, but for helping to connect the nascent American Studio Glass movement with esteemed European masters via his influential role as the longtime creative director of the Pilchuck Glass School, a title he held until 1987. And the studio he established in Seattle, Benjamin Moore, Inc., quickly became an essential crossroads where a new generation of glassblowers learned their craft and connected with established elders.

After high school, Moore -- ever ready to learn, travel, and connect -- left his native Washington state to study ceramics at California College of Arts and Craft (now CCA), where he went on to earn his BFA in 1974. There, he learned about glass through professor Marvin Lipofsky. The summer after he graduated, he headed to the newly formed Pilchuck Glass School, where he would meet his mentor Dale Chihuly, who was also the chair of the glass department at the Rhode Island School of Design. Enrolling in the graduate program at RISD, Moore would earn his MFA in 1977, after which he took off for Murano, to learn from the masters he had heard about from Chihuly, who himself had been a Fulbright fellow in 1968.