I’ve seen a few pieces of Chihuly glass during my travels. Each stand alone piece is magnificent, to be sure. But when you see them at Chihuly Garden & Glass arranged together inside and outside the museum, you are journeying into a whole other world full of brilliant color — literally under the sun!

Dale Chihuly

While there are plaques describing the sculptures in each room, it wasn’t until I watched videos in the theater that I felt like I understood what he was trying to create with his glass spears, balls, chandeliers, and ornamental swirls of glass tubes.

Chihuly was born in Tacoma, WA and took part in the first glass program offered at the University of Wisconsin. From there, he studied and later taught at the esteemed Rhode Island School of Design. After he won a Fulbright scholarship, he traveled to Italy to learn from renowned glass blowers there and observed a team approach to creating glass sculpture. It had a huge influence on his art. I highly recommend staying for all three documentary videos about Chihuly and the evolution of his work. You’ll have a much better appreciation for his work.

Macchia

In the early ’80’s, Chihuly decided to use all 300 glass colors he had available to him. He’d make what he called “macchia” which means “spotted” because as he added in layer after layer of color to the molten glass, he twirled his glassblowing pipe to swirl the colors. The results are incredible. There are different colors inside these concave bowls than outside, with spotted colors sprinkled throughout. As you view each piece from different angles, you start to appreciate the different ways color is reflected in the varying angles of light.

To walk beneath the Macchia seemed like a sacred space of color and light. It was breathtaking. It reminded me so much of being immersed in sunrays of color at Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia in Barcelona.

See the resemblance to Gaudi’s use of color and light below?

Assembling The Pieces

Chihuly starts by making pieces shaped like spears, or bulbs — piles of individually created pieces of glass that will later be assembled by a team of artists without any real preconceived notion of what the end piece will look like. Of course, they know if they’re creating a chandelier, or hanging piece that uses the glass pieces on the ground. Then they start fitting them into a frame, tilting pieces at different angles that they all stand back and agree upon as aesthetically pleasing. And boy, are they good at it!

Glass Garden Inside

This magnificent glass garden is one of the first exhibits you see. If you’re anything like me, I felt like I could have spent hours studying all the intricacies of this piece. I took picture after picture from various angles and different close-ups, but there’s just no way to do it justice.

But wait! There’s more!

Gardens of Glass Outside

The pictures speak for themselves.

I spent hours at Chihuly Garden & Glass, not just admiring each piece of work, but watching the films about Chihuly’s life and methods. Then I went back through to take a closer, more-informed look. I also watched a glass-blowing demonstration and had a cocktail from the cafe.

Chihuly Garden & Glass was my favorite tourist spot in Seattle. It’s located right below the Space Needle. Should be easy enough to find. And if it happens to be raining while you’re in Seattle, what better way to spend a rainy afternoon?

Have you seen Chihuly glass in your part of the world?