DALE CHIHULY

www.chihuly.com

risd connection: MFA in Ceramics, 1968; credited with establishing the RISD Glass Program

about his work: From the rich colors of his Macchia series and the voluptuous shapes of his Venetian pieces to the extraterrestrial feel of his large-scale Niijima Floats, Chihuly’s work places him among the leading glass artists in the world today. He is also known internationally for his large-scale glass installations in cities such as Venice, Jerusalem, London, Chicago and Salt Lake City.

in the beginning: A native of Tacoma, WA, Chihuly first worked with glass as an interior design major at the University of Washington. He went on to enroll in the first glass program in the country — with Harvey Littleton at the University of Wisconsin — before coming to RISD to earn his master’s (in ceramics given the school’s lack of its own glass program).

progressions: After graduation, Chihuly stayed on in Providence, where the nascent studio glass movement was beginning to take hold through the glass program he helped establish at RISD. In 1971 he also co-founded the world-renowned Pilchuk Glass School outside Seattle, while still continuing to teach at RISD sporadically until the late 1980s.

making it: Once he lost sight in his left eye after a 1976 car accident, Chihuly began perfecting the team approach to glass blowing he learned years earlier while on a Fulbright Fellowship at the Venini glass factory in Venice. He now oversees a Renaissance-style studio, workshop and publishing headquarters in Seattle, employing more than 130 glass blowers, sculptors and other assistants.

exhibitions: Chihuly’s most recent mega-show, Gardens of Glass: Chihuly at Kew, continues through early 2006 at the Royal Gardens at Kew, just outside London. It features a spectacular sequence of organically shaped and vibrantly colored glass sculptures set throughout the Kew’s 300 acres of gardens and greenhouses. In 1999 the artist mounted his most ambitious installation to date in and around the Tower of David Museum in Jerusalem’s historic Citadel. Called Chihuly in the Light of Jerusalem 2000, it featured 10,000 works of glass, or 42 tons of shipped artwork. More than a million visitors enjoyed the show during its six-month run.

accolades: Chihuly’s work is included in more than 200 museum collections worldwide. He has received numerous awards, including seven honorary doctorates and two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts.

discoveries: (1) “I don’t know why I work so large. I very often push a series to its maximum size — just to keep the glassblowers at the very edge of their technical abilities, to keep the tension high, to make it exciting.” (2) “If you know exactly what you’re doing and you can make it every time, it’s not going to be very interesting.” (3) “I just love a beautiful car; I can’t explain it” (in reference to his passion for Astin Martins and his prized 1954 Austin-Healey 100M).