Chihuly chats
Master glass artist Dale Chihuly speaks in Ketchum
By HANS IBOLD
Express Staff Writer
Photo Caption Internationally known glass artist Dale Chihuly discusses
his "Chihuly in the Light of Jerusalem" project at the Ketchum Community Library
on Tuesday at 7 p.m. Photos courtesy of Dale Chihuly.
Dale Chihuly, the world’s most celebrated glass maker, had a New
Year’s Eve like nobody else.
At the request of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, he created a series of
glass chandeliers with children in a Chicago youth program. He celebrated with them and
with two representatives from every country in the world underneath their glittering works
of art at Chicago’s millennial celebration. Then, the artist was airborne—flying
over fireworks, he said—to the White House, where he was a guest of President Clinton
the First Lady at their "Creators of the Century" millennial bash. At Mrs.
Clinton’s request, Chihuly created two glass trees for the foyer to the White House.
But the most spectacular Chihuly millennial event happened hours before
in Jerusalem without the artist. There, outside the Citadel fortress—now the Tower of
David Museum—crowds gathered around what is by far the largest glass installation
ever mounted in a museum or in a public space: "Chihuly in the Light of Jerusalem
2000."
A tribute to the ancient art of glassmaking, which originated 5,000
years ago in the Middle East, Chihuly’s Jerusalem installation includes 10,000 pieces
of multi-colored, multi-dimensional glass. The glass was blown at the 500-year-old Hebron
glass factory and at facilities in the United States, Finland, Japan, and the Czech
Republic and installed by a 30-person team.
Chihuly, whose work appears in 175 museum collections and who is
represented locally by the Gail Severn Gallery, discusses the Jerusalem millennial project
at the Ketchum Community Library at 7 p.m. on Tuesday.
Born in 1941 in Tacoma, Wash., Chihuly is as dramatic looking as his
work, with his curly hair, ubiquitous paint-splattered boots and his eye patch, which he
wears as a result of an automobile accident in 1976 that cost him the sight in his left
eye.
He has studied with the father of the American glass movement, Harvey
Littleton, at the University of Wisconsin; received an MFA from the Rhode Island School of
design; received a Fulbright Scholarship; and worked in the Venini glass factory in
Venice, a city that he said reminds him of the Old City of Jerusalem.
"I can’t think of a place that has as much history,"
Chihuly said of the 2,000-year-old Citadel located at the entrance to Jerusalem’s Old
City. "There were 20 or 20 different cultures that occupied it since it was built.
Because of that it’s very rich, very complex."
Reached by phone at an inn in Taos, N.M., Chihuly’s voice boomed
from the receiver as he discussed the Jerusalem project.
"It’s the most ambitious project I’ve ever done,"
he said.
More than a tribute to the origins of glassmaking, the glass art is
intended to be a kind of peace offering to the war torn region. The Citadel once divided
east and west Jerusalem between Israel and Jordan.
"Our crystals are going to help them forget their
differences," Chihuly said.
The region is also personally meaningful to Chihuly because of a
life-changing experience he had there in the early 1960s.
"I remember arriving at the kibbutz as a boy of 21 and leaving a
man, just a few short months later," he said. "Before Lehav (the kibbutz), my
life was more about having fun; and after Lehav I wanted to make some sort of contribution
to society."
Indeed, since then Chihuly’s contributions to society have been
numerous. He continues to lend his time to under-privileged children, most notably at the
Hilltop Artists Residence Program, which he created in Tacoma to help at-risk youth. He
founded the Pilchuck Glass School in Seattle, Wash., which has led glass artists to
prominence worldwide. And for some 30 years his own glass art has dazzled critics and
international audiences.
But no contribution that he has made to society has been as epic as
"Chihuly in the Light of Jerusalem 2000." For the project, he created pieces
larger than any he had done before.
Consider the "Crystal Mountain." The massive work rises 48
feet high, well above the Citadel’s soaring archways and towers. Weighing over 60
tons and supported by four miles of steel rods and 18,000 welds, the massive structure
took six weeks to fabricate. It still looks gossamery despite the steel because of the
2,000 gold-pink crystals that were added to the end of the rods.
"Crystal Mountain" also has a musical dimension. Passersby
can hear sounds—a subtle tingle mixed with the sound of church bells, a Gregorian
chant, a muezzin calling Muslims to prayer, a cello with a cantorial sound, a cantor
praying. Called "Echoes of Light and Time," the sound effect was achieved by
placing eight sensors among the crystals to pick up the changing intensity of light and
heat and the movement of sun through the glass.
"Chihuly in the Light of Jerusalem 2000" went half a million
dollars over budget, which Chihuly said he paid for.
"I didn’t expect to get as into it as much as I did, but the
site and the people inspired me and pulled me in," he said.
And Chihuly has pulled in an audience. Some 585,000 people have visited
the exhibit since it opened in July.
Can’t make it to the Community Library Tuesday night or to Israel?
Check out Chihuly on the web at www.chihuly.com.
