September 20 – Happy Birthday, Dale Chihuly

nPostednon September 20, 2013

Dale Chihuly’s glass ceiling at the
Bellagio in Las Vegas.

nWhennI was a kid, I was amazed by glass blowing. I don’t remember seeing anlot of glass blowers—perhaps just one of those guys in a shop whoncreates tiny delicate horses and dragons and flowers while you watch.

nI was so surprised that hard, breakable glass could be so flowy,ncould be blown and plucked and carved and sculpted into so many different shapes!

n
n

nAsnan adult, I’ve been to some great glass places—from the CorningnMuseum of Glass in New York to the Waterford Crystal Glass factoryntour in Ireland, from the demonstrations at Cal State FullertonnCollege’s glass blowing studio to the Museum of Glass in Tacoma,nWashington.

nAndnone of the standouts in some of these places is the glass art of DalenChihuly!

Chihulyndoesn’t dabble around making inch-long dragons for little girls. Manynof his pieces are HUGE – a 30 foot (10 m) long chandelier, fornexample, or a 15 foot tall (5 m) tower. And these aren’t large flatnpieces – they are fully three dimensional.

nSome of Chihuly’s piecesnare representational (one may look like a crazy arrangement ofnbrightly colored flowers, for example), but others look like a morenabstract form of craziness. Twisting, bulbous, or ribbonlike, goldennor azure or grass green, the glass seems to be organic, growing,nliving, moving things—but not necessarily anything you’ve ever seennbefore!

nOnenof the most amazing Chihuly experiences I’ve ever had was walkingnacross his Bridge of Glass. We crossed a wide freeway on an500-foot-long pedestrian overpass, from the Museum of Glass to thenold train station, where more Chihuly works are displayed. We passednthe Venetian Wall, where 109 of Chihuly’s works are displayed—naturalnlight pouring through the glass wall, through the glass art, to ourndelighted eyes—and we passed the 40-foot-tall Crystal Towers, whichnlooked like they’d been plucked from Superman’s Fortress of Solitude.nExcited to spot the Chihuly windows of the trainnstation, we trotted over the last bit of the Glass Bridge – and itnwas only on the return trip that we noticed the best part of all—anceiling of glowing, colorful “sea creatures” made of glass. To benexact, there were 2,364 glass sculptures placed on top of then50-by-20-foot plate-glass ceiling! And of course, the glass wasn’tnliterally glowing, but again, the natural light pouring down throughnthe glass was transfixing!
n

Chihulynwas born on this date in 1941, in Tacoma. I think it’s very ironicnthat this artist, who is considered THE preeminent glass artist innthe world, was badly injured by glass—but not by the glass he worksnwith! In 1976, he was in a car accident, and he flew through thenwindshield. The glass cuts he suffered resulted in blindness in oneneye. Chihuly wears a black eye patch (and yes, he looks a bit like anpirate!).

nThreenyears later, a bodysurfing accident left Chihuly unable to hold anglass blowing pipe, so now he has to have assistants do work that hendirects. He has said that he is now “morenchoreographer than dancer, more supervisor than participant, morendirector than actor.”n n

nAlsonon this date: