Toledo, Ohio, had long been a center of commercial glass production and artistic innovation in the field of studio glass. In a garage on the grounds of the Toledo Museum of Art, Harvey Littleton, Dominick Labino, and Harvey Leafgreen began in 1962 their now-historic experimental glass workshop and classes. In 1968 the museum began an annual survey of contemporary art glass. These elite surveys recognized the leading talents in the field. Chihuly and Carpenter were invited to exhibit their newest experimental work in the fall of 1970.

Of the eleven artists included in the third survey, only they and Marvin Liposfsky submitted large objects. Chibuly's and Carpenter's elongated and organic, color-infused installation pieces were lengthy arcs of glass filled with neon and argon gases. From Carpenter came their exotic Latin botanical names: Orchis Pubescence, Monotropa Uniflora, Physalia Deluxeus, and Medusae Superioris. These sinuous arcs placed the two artists at the forefront of a movement begun at the Toledo Museum of Art to fuse the technical and creative interests that would shift American glass from functional objects to sculpture, but it was their breakthrough into bigger scale and their inclusion of neon that immediately established them in the vanguard of the studio glass movement.