DALE CHIHULY Born in 1941 in Tacoma, Washington, Dale Chihuly was introduced to glass while studying interior design at the University of Washington.

After graduating in 1965, Chihuly enrolled in the first glass program in the country, at the University of Wisconsin. He continued his studies at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), where he later established the glass program and taught for more than a decade.

In 1968, after receiving a Fulbright Fellowship, he went to work at the Venini glass factory in Venice. There he observed the team approach to blowing glass, which is critical to the way he works today.

In 1971, Chihuly cofounded Pilchuck Glass School in Washington State. With this international glass center, Chihuly has led the avant-garde in the development of glass as a fine art. Pictured is Chihuly’s work at the Bellagio casino in Nevada.

In 1976, while Chihuly was in England, he was involved in a head-on car accident during which he flew through the windshield. His face was severely cut by glass and he was blinded in his left eye. After recovering, he continued to blow glass until he dislocated his right shoulder in a 1979 body surfing accident. No longer able to hold the glass blowing pipe, he hired others to do the work.

His work is included in more than 200 hundred museum collections worldwide. He has been the recipient of many awards, including twelve honorary doctorates and two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts.

The University of Akron

Close-Up of Akron

"I love to go to the ocean and walk along the beach. Glass is so much like water. If you let it go on its own, it almost ends up looking like something that came from the sea." —Chihuly The Seaform Pavilion in Tacoma Washington is a ceiling made of 2,364 objects from Chihuly's Seaform and Persian series. Seaforms have soft, undulating sides and rims, and feature delicate, flowing forms and colors. Persians, the exotic cousin to the Seaforms, are a rich variety of cones, flasks, and roundels with spiraling ribbons of color.

Placed on top of a fifty-by-twenty-foot plate-glass ceiling, the forms are suspended in midair and make dramatic use of natural light. Fluorescent lights augment daylight on cloudy days and illuminate the pavilion at night. The tinted glass side walls of the pavilion allow viewers to immerse themselves in the space without distraction. As visitors walk under this pavilion, they experience a seemingly underwater world of glass shapes and forms a few feet above their heads.

Alexander Calder

Other Glass Scuptures

What’s the next step? Begin brainstorming ideas for your sculpture Sketch at least 2 ideas in your sketchbook Include scale and color in sketches What elements and principles apply to this sculpture?