Up close and personal with Chihuly
They have been friends for nearly thirty years, through good times and bad — and, now, even a gallery-friendly yin-and-yang in the midst of a pandemic.
“I could not help, of course, but recognize him,” recalls Toronto’s Sandra Ainsley about her first encounter with famed glass artist, Dale Chihuly. Hard to miss because of the patch he wears over one eye — the result of a catastrophic car crash in 1976, necessitating 250 stitches afterward — and already then making a name for his shards of riotous tapestry — he caught her attention in a shoe department. At Saks Fifth Avenue! In Palm Beach!
It was an entirely chance meeting, and it just so happened she had a burgeoning new gallery. As plucky as ever, she tells me, “I think my inexperience and sincerity came through even though I pretty much pounced on him. It was October 1988, and he opened my gallery in the Exchange Tower, in the Financial District in May 1989, with a one-man exhibition.”
Seven major exhibitions later — including, this week, the opening of a new one via a show that is a hybrid of virtual and appointment viewings — Ainsley confirms: “Over that time period, I have always had Dale’s work in the gallery. I am his longest standing dealer.”
For Chihuly, now 79, the love is clearly mutual. A pioneer in his form, and a veritable Mozart of glass, one might say — one whose sculptures circle the world, from Singapore to Jerusalem, The Bronx to Dubai, are collected by stars such as Elton John, and have even sat in the make-believe lairs of people like Dr. Frasier Crane — he told me this week that “this latest exhibition was designed to show the breadth of my work over the past three decades in honour of our long-standing working relationship.”
Though he made a splash here some years back with a blockbuster retrospective at the ROM, this latest show seems to be even more personal in nature, and includes “two new pieces … demonstrating my interest in scale and massing colour.” For the first time, too, in Canada, he is exhibiting his Light Drawings, as he likes to call them. Sadly, however, he isn’t able to join in person, of course.
Touching base from his home in Seattle, where he is riding out 2020 — and where he has been weighing new projects, while doing his share of binge w he did oblige me with a wee catch-up.
Asked what he’s been binging — first thing’s first — he mentions retracing all of “The Sopranos” (Tony Soprano forever!), and also hitting up old Marlon Brando classics. “I love “On the Waterfront” because it makes me think of my father, who was a union organizer,” he says.
All this, while enjoying loads of spaghetti alle vongole with his wife — since he hasn’t been able to travel lately to his beloved Venice (where his love affair with glass was first hatched in the glass-making factories on the island of Murano).
When I ask about his most iconic work — the Fiori di Como inside the Bellagio in Las Vegas — Chihuly accepts my premise that it was that work that turned him into a household name. Reflecting on the sprawling floral reef today, he sees it a massive feat by his team back in the 1990s: “Just imagine conceiving of and then installing an artwork comprised of over 2,100 individual forms and weighing more than 40,000 pounds (18,000 kilos) overhead. I wanted to use a lot
colour … and worked to organize the colour to appear random, as you might find in nature. Due to the number of people who visit the Bellagio and see Fiori di Como, it has introduced thousands of people to my work and has become one of my most popular installations.”
Not so shabby for a lad who once worked in a meat plant — and who also once toiled on a commercial fishing vessel. “I didn’t have a backup plan,” Chihuly says, “and I’m grateful for the work ethic I learned from my parents and from that experience. It pushed me out of my comfort zone … I continue to push myself and my team beyond our comfort zones to create new work.”
When the subject turns to one of his abiding influences, the starchitect Frank Lloyd Wright, the maestro then informs: “As an artist who studied interior design and architecture, my focus is on light, space and form. Light being transmitted through glass — such as Lloyd Wright’s windows — can be magical. His architectural designs are unexpected and I try to approach my work in the same way.”
But back to Sandra. Asked what continues to rouse her, re: Chihuly’s work, the gallerist says it ultimately comes down to this: “He has never seen a colour he doesn’t love.” Oh, and also this: “The energy of his work, and the complexity of patterns. I like that he revisits his past series and continues to explore them by pushing the boundaries.”
Likewise, when asked to sum up his own life’s work — and complete this fill-in-the-blank, “Glass is ___” — Chihuly gives it to me straight. “Glass,” he ends, “is the most enchanting of all materials.”