Chihuly gets big 70th bash in Tacoma

Tacomans showed how much Dale Chihuly means to his hometown at a 70th birthday lecture and book-signing Sunday afternoon.

The Tacoma-born-but-world-famous artist – whose name is synonymous with effusive, brightly colored, enormous blown glass and who is credited with making Puget Sound the glass art hub of America – showed his good will to the city by giving a show-and-tell lecture at the University of Washington Tacoma just two days before his 70th birthday. He then signed books at the Tacoma Art Museum.

About 250 people attended the lecture, which was prefaced by congratulatory remarks from UWT chancellor Debra Friedman, TAM director Stephanie Stebich and honorary TAM trustee Wendy Griffin. His remarks were acknowledged by standing ovations.

Chihuly’s wife, Leslie Jackson Chihuly, sat in the front with their 13-year-old son, Jackson, along with other friends.

Wearing his usual eye patch and a salmon-pink shirt, Chihuly followed his biography with videos of how he creates the work he’s most proud of:

 • “Chihuly Over Venice,” where elaborate chandeliers were suspended above the city’s historic bridges and courtyards.

 • “Chihuly in the Light of Jerusalem,” colorful 46-foot towers and pyramids inside the old Citadel that attracted more than a million visitors.

 • His 1,000-piece glass icicle at Leavenworth.

“I don’t think while I work,” Chihuly said on video. “I just do what I think will look good, and I don’t know what that is until I do it.”

Chihuly described how he transports his works of art.

“After every show, we break it down and ship it to the Jet building here in Tacoma,” he said. “I don’t know how much glass I have in storage.”

He said not very many of the pieces break.

“That was the beautiful thing about it,” Chihuly said. “Though there were probably a few broken pieces on the bottom of the river” (in Finland where they threw glass pieces in).

What about the team aspect of making glass?

“Glass is difficult to do by yourself,” he said. “We have up to 15 people on the floor making really big pieces.”

Sandy and Ted Ramstad, who had been in Chihuly’s class at Tacoma’s Franklin Elementary School from kindergarten on, stood up to say how proud they were.

“He was just a kid like all the rest of us,” said Sandy, “maybe more artistic.”

The Ramstads hadn’t realized Chihuly’s abilities until they saw a piece of his in the Cornish Glass Museum years later. Now living in Savannah, Ga., they’ve seen many of his works and own one.

Don Erickson wasn’t at the lecture. Too late to attend, he’d gone to the museum to be the first in a line of more than 100 people waiting to get Chihuly’s signature on the recent TAM book of his local work.

“He’s a creative genius,” said Erickson, “one of the greatest resources Tacoma has for its cultural community.”

A private patron reception at TAM followed the events, during which Stebich presented Chihuly with a mixed-media icon by Lynn di Nino depicting the artist as the “Patron Saint of Tacoma.”

The TAM exhibition “Dale Chihuly’s Northwest” has been extended through Oct. 2.

FROM TACOMA AND BEYOND

Born in Tacoma on Sept. 20, 1941, Dale Chihuly grew up in a working-class family. After a difficult time at Stadium High School, during which his brother and his father died within a year of each other, Chihuly enrolled in a weaving course at the College (now University) of Puget Sound at the encouragement of his mother, Viola. He transferred to a design course at the University of Washington in Seattle a year later, and after a trip to Europe began to incorporate glass into his tapestries and blow glass at home.

Earning tuition fees by working on Alaskan fishing boats, the artist then studied glassblowing in Wisconsin, the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, and Venice, Italy. He returned to found the glass department at RISD.

By founding the Pilchuck Glass School in Seattle in 1971, Chihuly brought the ancient art form to the Puget Sound region; he says it now boasts more glass artists than Venice itself. Reinventing the form with wild shapes, colors and sizes, he has created a highly successful career, despite lacking sight in one eye from a car accident. He directs a team of glassblowers to create enormous sculptures and installations, one of few artists to make a globally famous corporation out of his work.

Though now living in Seattle, Chihuly has maintained close ties with Tacoma, donating works and supporting projects such as the Bridge of Glass and the Hilltop Artists in Residence program at Jason Lee Middle School, and operating his storage and shipping out of three Tacoma warehouses.

His work can be seen at Union Station, the Bridge of Glass and other sites around the museum district.

Rosemary Ponnekanti: 253-597-8568
rosemary.ponnekanti@thenewstribune.com