At 75, Chihuly discusses struggles with mental health

‘I’m usually either up or down’

SEATTLE, July 29, (AP): The private studio of glass artist Dale Chihuly reflects his long obsession with collecting. Sheets of stamps cover one table; pocket knives are marshaled on another. Carnival-prize figurines from the first half of the 20th century line shelves that reach the ceiling.

Amid the ordered clutter, some items hint at more than Chihuly’s eclectic tastes: a long row of Ernest Hemingway titles in one bookcase, and in another an entire wall devoted to Vincent van Gogh — homages to creative geniuses racked by depression.

Chihuly, too, has struggled with his mental health, by turns fragile and luminous like the art he makes. Now 75 and still in the thrall of a decades-long career, he discussed his bipolar disorder in detail for the first time publicly in an interview with The Associated Press.

He and his wife, Leslie Chihuly, said they don’t want to omit from his legacy a large part of who he is, but they were also motivated to speak in part by a $21 million demand letter they had received from a former contractor who claimed to have contributed to Chihuly’s

In this May 19, 2017 photo, glass artist Dale Chihuly poses for a picture in front of his ‘Glass on Glass’ pieces i a reflection room at the Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center in Omaha,

Nebraska. (AP)

art.

“It’s a pretty remarkable moment to be able to have this conversation”, Leslie Chihuly said. “We really want to open our lives a little bit and share something more personal ... Dale’s a great example of somebody who can have a successful marriage and a successful family life and successful career — and suffer from a really debilitating, chronic disease. That might be helpful for other people”.

Chihuly, who began working with glass in the 1960s, is a pioneer of the glass art movement. Known for styles that include vibrant seashell-like shapes, baskets, chandeliers and ambitious installations in botanical gardens and museums, he has said that pushing the material to new forms, creating objects never before seen, fascinates him.

Even in the past year he has found a new way of working with glass — painting with glass enamel on glass panes, stacking the panes together and back-lighting them to give them a visual depth. He calls it “Glass on Glass”, and it’s featured for the first time in the new Chihuly Sanctuary at the Buffett Cancer Center in Omaha, Nebraska, and at an indoor-outdoor exhibit last month at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas.

But the flip side of that creativity has sometimes been dark. He began suffering from depression in his 20s, he said, and those spells began to alternate with manic periods beginning in his late 40s.

“I’m usually either up or down”, Chihuly said. “I don’t have neutral very much. When I’m up I’m usually working on several projects. A lot of times it’s about a six-month period. When I’m down, I kind of go in hibernation”. He still works but doesn’t feel as good about it. His wife noted that if he only went into the studio when he was up, he “wouldn’t have had a career”.

Asked what his down periods are like, Chihuly took a long pause. “Just pretty tough”, he said. “I’m lucky that I like movies. If I don’t feel good, I’ll put on a movie”.

Leslie Chihuly, who runs his studio, is more loquacious about the difficulties his condition has posed in their 25-year relationship.