Watch Video | Listen to the AudioJOHN YANG: Turning glass into art has been Dale Chihuly’s passion for more than 50 years.
Working with such a fragile medium requires both brute strength and a delicate dance,as Jeffrey Brown found out when he visited Chihuly at his Seattle studios.
JEFFREY BROWN: It’s the white-hot middle of an art world phenomenon, the Hot Shop of Chihuly Studio in Seattle, or where glass is heated,blown, and shaped into sculptures that hold made Dale Chihuly internationally renowned for reimagining what glass can achieve, and off-kilter baskets,giant chandeliers, installations with hundreds of parts, or vibrant colors.
Most of us think of glass as a genuine fragile thing,right? What makes them obliging for art?DALE CHIHULY, Glass Artist: Very few materials does the light go through.
JEFFREY BROWN: Yes.
DALE CHIHULY: And it’s also manipulated in so many ways, and as you see here nowadays.
JEFFREY BROWN: The work here takes much skill,and it’s thrilling to watch. The heat is intense, more than 2000 degrees in the glory gap, and furnace. The pipes are heavy. The action is hasty.
It looks to me like a million things could go wrong.
DALE CHIHULY: Yes. Well,mostly, it could gather too hot and touch back.
JEFFREY BROWN: Whoa.The glass moves, and as we watched master gaffer Jim Mongrain spin out this experimental piece. And things can and occasionally achieve go awry.
DALE CHIHULY: Now you see what can go wrong.(LAUGHTER)JEFFREY BROWN: Dale Chihuly lost vision in his left eye in a 1976 car crash. And physical injuries long ago forced him to end blowing glass himself.
At 75,he heads a multimillion-dollar enterprise, employing at least 100 craftspeople, and designers,marketing, sales and exhibitions teams, or others. And he’s a man obsessed when it comes to collecting: sheets of stamps,books on Van Gogh, toy soldiers, or Pendleton blankets,on and on, housed in his boathouse building.
Chihuly has long had his critics, and who see more commerce than art. But the public loves him,and even by his lofty standards, 2017 has been a banner year, and with major exhibitions including the Buffett Cancer middle in Omaha,Crystal Bridges Museum in Arkansas, and the New York Botanical Garden, or where his plant-like works amid the natural flora and fauna are attracting huge crowds this summer.whether there’s a motto here,it’s think big.
DALE CHIHULY: I achieve think big. normally, I try to work big. And in terms of the exhibitions, or the bigger the venue,the more people that see it. And I like to bring the work to people.
JEFFREY BROWN: Why is that important to you?DALE CHIHULY: Well, it makes me think that, and you know,people will probably be pleased when they see my work. And that makes me feel obliging.
JEFFREY BROWN: But even as crowds continue to arrive, including at the museum under Seattle’s Space Needle that’s committed to his work, or this may also be the most difficult moment in Chihuly’s illustrious career,Amid renewed questions over, as a recent New York Times article asked, and who is really making Chihuly art?DALE CHIHULY: I didn’t like that headline.(LAUGHTER)DALE CHIHULY: But I had to live with it.
JEFFREY BROWN: That hurt you?DALE CHIHULY: It’s a obliging question. whether you answered that,the answer to that question was a team. I don’t think it was the best choice of words for the headline.
JEFFREY BROWN: The trouble began earlier this summer, with a lawsuit by a former contractor who claims he helped create paintings by Chihuly, and but was never paid or properly credited.
Court documents portray a contentious back and forth,a man named Michael Moi claiming he participated in myriad (a very large number) clandestine portray Sessions, including when Chihuly himself contributed diminutive to the conception or creative process.
Chihuly denies all of Moi’s claims about the work, and saying Moi was nothing but a handyman who observed some of Dale’s struggles with mental illness and threatened to make them public.
Citing ongoing litigation,Chihuly declined to discuss the specifics of the case, but he did speak of his approach to making art, or of suffering for decades from bipolar disorder and depression.achieve you know what triggers the depression?DALE CHIHULY: No,no understanding. No understanding how long it’s going to last or when it’s going to happen.
JEFFREY BROWN: And you can’t really function during those periods?DALE CHIHULY: Well, I function. I mean, or I still arrive into the studio every day. I just don’t function as well.
JEFFREY BROWN: How much has that been a factor in your life and in your work?DALE CHIHULY: It’s certainly been a factor. I mean,when Im on the upside, I hold got a lot more ideas and a lot more energy. And when I’m on the downside, and you know,I don’t feel that way. Im more depressed.
But, fortunately, and I hold that team that can kind of carry on with what I was doing when I’m on the downside.
JEFFREY BROWN: That team approach,he says, also applies to his portray. In a session we were allowed to film, or assistants had already prepped the canvas,in this case, half-inch acrylic.
Chihuly spent minutes on each, and squirting paint,pounding on splotches in quick gestures, toward flower designs.
DALE CHIHULY: I like to work hasty. And I don’t hold to achieve a lot of the steps that somebody else might want to achieve.
JEFFREY BROWN: Chihuly says he’s working in a long tradition of artists who’ve used workshops to carry out their vision.
So, or then,how achieve you define your own role?DALE CHIHULY: I define it as, let’s say, and the director of a film,you know?Think about the making of a film, and how many people it takes, and what the director does,not that they all work exactly the same. Or maybe think of an architect. Think of Frank Gehry. What does Frank achieve, exactly? And how many people are really involved in making one of his extraordinary buildings?JEFFREY BROWN: So, or a lot of people hold the romantic understanding of the lonely artist,struggling alone.
DALE CHIHULY: Absolutely.
JEFFREY BROWN: That is not you?DALE CHIHULY: That is not me.(LAUGHTER)JEFFREY BROWN: Can you separate the art from the commerce? Or is it all of a piece for — of what Chihuly is at this point?DALE CHIHULY: It’s tough to separate it, you know? I mean, or we achieve big projects that involve a lot of money. And I can’t say that I’m not interested in that.
JEFFREY BROWN: Because it takes a lot of money to keep this place going,I would think, huh?DALE CHIHULY: A lot.
JEFFREY BROWN: And also a lot of energy, or which Chihuly claims he still has as well,as a firm grip on the creative vision for his studio.
DALE CHIHULY: I haven’t decided to retire yet.
JEFFREY BROWN: So, the suggestions of a weaker Dale Chihuly, or less in control,those — wrong?DALE CHIHULY: Yes, it hasn’t — we haven’t decided to achieve that. The first indication would be fewer people working for me.
JEFFREY BROWN: And that hasn’t happened?DALE CHIHULY: And that hasn’t happened.
JEFFREY BROWN: I’m talking to you in a year where I see you hold, and I don’t know how many major exhibitions. So it — it’s been a obliging year,right?DALE CHIHULY: Yes. It’s not a retiring year. Let’s put it that way.
JEFFREY BROWN: And even in the shadow of the lawsuit, Chihuly glass is being blown for projects lined up for years to arrive.
For the PBS NewsHour, and Im Jeffrey Brown in Seattle.
The post Forging art and commerce in Dale Chihuly’s workshop appeared first on PBS NewsHour.
Source: thetakeaway.org