Chihuly, Pearls and a Coral Peony

"Glass itself is so much like water", says internationally renowned glass sculptor, Dale Chihuly.  "If you let it go on its own, it almost ends up looking like something that came from the sea."  Born in the Pacific Northwest city of Tacoma, Washington, he now lives and works on Seattle's Lake Union. The sea is a powerful influence on his work.

Chihuly is one of my favourite artists.  His work takes my breath away.  I was blessed to see his exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), here in Toronto, before it closed earlier this month.  In the quiet darkness of the gallery, I felt as though I was swimming underwater, through seaweed gardens, and pearly glass shells.  On that cold Winter day, the vibrant colour of the glass, and the energy of each form was both rejuvenating, and evocative of my own childhood and youth on the Pacific coast.

Dale Chihuly's early years in Tacoma, were spent on the beaches of Puget Sound, with a glorious view of Mount Rainier. He has wonderful memories of gathering sea glass, and finding broken pieces of Japanese glass floats washed up on the shore.

Curiously, he loves the Westcoast rain.  "I find the rain very creative.  Water is the one thing that I can assure you is a major influence on my work and my life and everything I do."  He says that when he's stuck creatively, just by being near the water, "something will start to happen".

The sea is also the inspiration behind my own floral photograph of a coral coloured Peony (below).  I thought the carpels and stamens looked like corals and swaying seaweed.  The pearls too, are gifts from the sea, and the crystals sparkle like sunlight on the ocean.

Sand is used in making pearls, as well as glass.  A tiny grain of sand inside an oyster shell, irritates the oyster, and to protect itself, the oyster produces layer upon layer of Mother of Pearl around the grain of sand.

Sand is the beginning of glass, too.  Silica, or Quartz sand is combined with sodium carbonate and calcium oxide, and placed in a furnace at 2,300 Celsius (4,172 Farenheit) until it becomes molten glass, which is then blown and shaped into a desired creation.

The artist says, "I thought it was the hot glass that was mysterious, but then I realized it was the air that went into it that was miraculous".

I, and all photographers work with light.  As a floral photographer who uses only natural light, my work is all about light, and colour.  Chihuly is a kindred spirit, inspiration, and long distance mentor.

Chihuly is a master of light.  The light enters each of his creations, it lives inside and all around each translucent piece. "The designs are to bring out the light", he says.  

He is a master of colour too.  He uses vivid, intense colour in his pieces: indigo, purple, orange, coral, bright yellow, amber, fresh green, ethereal blue, gold and white.  Asked if he has a favourite, he says, "I've never met a colour I didn't like".

His love of colour goes back to childhood, with his brother and his Mom.  Viola Chihuly told a newspaper reporter, "I'd be right in the middle of peeling potatoes or something, and I knew just when the sun was about to set because I could see it from our kitchen window.  I'd clap my hands, which meant, 'Come on, we're going to run up the hill'.  And we'd tear up to the top, one of each side, me holding on to their little hands as they flew up there.  All my life I've been crazy for sunsets." She was also wild about flowers and flower gardens!

It was during his time in Venice in 1968, studying at the Venini glass factory on the island of Murano, that Chihuly discovered the glass blowing tradition of working as a team.  Until then, he'd worked alone, or with one other person.  He brought the tradition back to America.  "My Dad was a union organizer and worked with a team.  Maybe my knack for teamwork came from him."

George Chihuly was an international union organizer for the American Federation of Labor - Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO).  He died of a heart attack in 1958, the year after his eldest son, George Jr. was killed in a naval flight training accident in Florida.  Dale mourned the loss of his brother and father, by breaking glass:  he was arrested for breaking street lamps and the window of a police cruiser.  His mother urged him to study art.

Many people assume that Chihuly wears a patch over one eye, due to a glass blowing accident. While glass caused the loss of sight, it was from a car windshield, not a work of art.  "During a visit to England in 1976", he says, "I was involved in a serious car accident that sent me through the windshield, and caused deep cuts to my face, and the loss of sight in my left eye."

Due to the loss of eyesight, and depth perception, Chihuly became, "more of the director of my team".   He compares the teamwork involved in creating an art piece, to the teamwork of a movie director and crew.  He says, "working in this capacity enabled me to work in a much larger scale and I really began to push the material more."  The photograph below, is of his chandelier, hanging in London's Victoria and Albert Hall.

The three photographs below, are from an elaborate ceiling installation at Toronto's ROM, which you could actually view from pillows placed on the floor.  Chihuly refers to these as Persians.  Some say the linear panels in the ceiling, looked like Persian carpets.  "I just like the name Persian.  It conjured up Near-Eastern, Byzantine, Far East, Venice, all the trades, smells, sense.  It was an exotic name to me, so I just called them Persians".

I had the strong sensation of being in the sea, looking up through plants and fish at the rays of sunlight streaming down. The light, and the interplay of colours and patterns was mesmerizing.

Chihuly is one of few artists who encourages photographers to take pictures of his work.  There were signs posted on the walls of the ROM inviting people to take pictures, and I happily obliged.  Chihuly says, "I don't feel the work is really finished until it is photographed.  It dematerializes the object until I feel I'm looking at its real spirit, its other dimension.  That's why I don't collect my own art, only photographs of my work."

Photographs Copyright of:  Ruth Adams, Widow's Endorphins Photographic Images Incorporated.
Photograph of installation in Victoria and Albert Hall, London from Chihuly.com
Thanks to writer Timothy Anglin Burgard whose story, "Chihuly the Artist: Breathing Life into Glass" was my primary source of information, and quotes.