Keith was instrumental in the creation of the Hot Glass program at Southern. In 1975, he and his faculty colleague sculptor Peter Pellettieri built over a weekend the rudimentary structures that would form the hot shop with the help of Mark Peiser, from the Penland School of Crafts. The unique program continued until 1992 and produced a number of prominent glass artists.
Keith amassed an impressive list of professional accomplishments. His art work is represented in over seventy public and private collections, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art, the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Baltimore Museum of Art and the Yale Art Gallery. His work is included in numerous university collections and has been shown in national and international juried exhibitions, and over the years he conducted printmaking, basket making and paper making workshops across the country. He had a number of solo, two-artist and group exhibitions during his distinguished career. In 1980, he was one of only a few artists to receive a large Connecticut Commission on the Arts Fellowship that enabled him to pursue his printmaking research for an entire semester.
