Thomas S. Buechner became president of Steuben Glass in 1973. Arthur Houghton became chairman. Mary Madigan points out that, “A major philosophical shift during the Buechner years was the new freedom given individual artist-designers.” Buechner said, “My job is to make sure we have the best artists and designers and to do everything we can to stimulate them to do their best work – in a medium appropriate to Steuben.”

In 1980 David Dowler, a successful Steuben designer since 1972, introduced a whole new world at Steuben when he exhibited eighteen abstract crystal sculptures. Dowler was totally fascinated with putting polished and unpolished surfaces together so one might look into an object. The freedom to create abstractly at Steuben soon was taken advantage of by Eric Hilton who produced Innerland and Peter Aldridge and his sculptures.

In 1988 Steuben again focused on the abstract with The Steuben Project: Sculptures in Crystal. Mary Jean Madigan’s description of this project in her book Steuben Glass: An American Tradition in Crystal (pp197-98) is excellent and the following information comes from it. For this project three of Steuben’s designers, Peter Aldridge, David Dowler, and Eric Hilton were given stipends and carte blanche to each create eight sculptures in Steuben glass. For the first time ever, they would produce a Steuben project in their own studios rather than working at Steuben. However, they also were given unlimited use of the Steuben factory. “Freed from normal commercial constraints,” writes Madigan, "the three designers ‘pushed the possibilities of glass to their very limits’" in pieces ranging in size  up to six feet.

Madigan then describes the work of these three artist-designers. “For the exhibition, David Dowler used his signature combination of matte and polished glass in several wall pieces in an ongoing ‘exploration of what glass is, what glass does, and its capacity for expression.’ Eric Hilton produced minutely detailed and engraved works inspired by remote areas of northwest Scotland, capturing ‘the visual rhythms of our planet’ and the ‘complex universe of inner and outer space.’ Peter Aldridge, 'developing the language of visual harmonics,’ used precisely cut prismatic forms to explore ‘the pure geometry of light.’”

The show was, indeed, a success and at its end only seven pieces remained unsold. The unsold pieces were sent to Steuben’s shop at Neiman Marcus in Dallas, Texas. A local collector bought all but one of the sculptures before the opening reception was held.