Ohira may not be an integral part of the studio craft movement. However, when he arrived in Venice in 1977 hoping to hone his skills as a craftsman, he benefited greatly from artists such as Richard Marquis and Dale Chihuly who had preceded him to the glass blowing furnaces of Murano, breaking the secret techniques of the Venetian masters and opening up glass blowing to singular artists working in their own studios. Ohira's Japanese sense of simplicity in shape combined with these ancient Italian surface techniques has significantly altered the perception of contemporary studio glass.
