For more than 30 years, Dale Chihuly’s work, principally in glass (but occasionally including such unconventional media as neon and ice), has challenged traditional distinctions between craft and art. Chihuly’s oeuvre is notable for its vibrancy of color, the boldness of its shape and execution, and, in recent years, its studied mimicry of natural forms, from cacti to seaweed and jellyfish.
Bound like an artist’s sketchbook this book documents the culmination of this amazing artistic odyssey that took the artist from his Seattle Boathouse hot shop to Nuutajarvi, Finland; Waterford, Ireland; Monterrey, Mexico; and finally Venice to blow glass. In the factories in those locations, Chihuly and his team of American glass blowers worked with native artisans more accustomed to making functional objects than art. Together they created the 14 chandeliers that graced the campos and canals of Venice for a remarkable time in September 1996.
