Dale Chihuly

Dale Chihuly, Through the Looking Glass

Dale Chihuly, The Sun

Dale Chihuly became famous for his glass blowing techniques. He further gained notoriety after traveling to Venice and through a grant learned the famous Venice glass blowing techniques. His works now rival Murano’s glassworks. They used a team to make beautiful glass works. He did the same and his team of master glass blowers has made him more famous. His works are abstract in design making them more ornamental and fascinating to view. He also creates plant like themes in his glass pieces. Some have floral themes while others look like reeds. His very skilled workers are able to make his works very large and very extravagant. Many of this works are hung from the ceiling like chandeliers, put in shelves in the gallery wall, placed in fountains, and in manmade lakes, ponds or canals.

Dale Chihuly Chandelier Victoria and Albert Museum

           His glass sculpture The Sun is supported by this large pole sticking out of the ground. It is 13 feet hight and is made of long swirly rods. 1,000 separates rods were used for this piece. These rods have the yellow hue of the sun and also reds and blues. The rods are held together by a center piece and they stick out like rays of the sun.

Chihuly and his team from Finland also did a large chandelier for the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. This piece is similar to The Sun, with rods sticking out of several central pieces. This piece is large 30 feet in height and has green and blue color rods. This piece will eventually be replaced with a chandelier two times the height.   

           They have organic qualities either plant like or for me similar to squid tentacles. One work has this sea life quality, another chandelier installation for the Rio Della Torre Stelle in Venice. It has this rich blue like color and has thick tentacles like glass sticking out everywhere from the center. The many tentacles are in various position give the piece a lifelike appearance.

Dale Chihuly, Chandelier, Venice, Italy

Chihuly installation piece Through the Looking Glass is different than his other works. He adds a boat and places his pieces of glass in the boat. The glass pieces vary from red, blue, green and yellows and vary from in form. They all have this organic representation of leaves and vines. It looks like a fun boat party for colorful plants.

I’ve always admired the glossy and fragile qualities of glass. It takes strength and patience to work with glass. In Chihuly case, it takes a very supportive and great team effort to create these large mesmerizing pieces.