a'tris

Recently Amie (our a’tris t-shirt winner and an all-around super-awesome person) shared a link to Dale Chihuly‘s website with me. Dale is an American glass sculptor and entrepreneur with an incredible story. I’ll let Wikipedia do the talking:

Chihuly graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School in Tacoma. Supported by his mother, after his brother George’s death in 1957 at a flight-training accident in Florida and his father’s death of a heart attack a year later, he enrolled at the College of the Puget Sound in 1959. A year later, he transferred to the University of Washington at Seattle, where in 1965 he received a bachelor of arts degree in interior design .

In 1967, he received a Master of Science in sculpture from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he studied under Harvey Littleton . In 1968, he studied glass in Venice on a Fulbright Fellowship and received a Master of Fine Arts at the Rhode Island School of Design . In 1971, with the support of John Hauberg and Anne Gould Hauberg, Chihuly founded the Pilchuck Glass School near Stanwood, Washington .

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 shoulder in a 1979 bodysurfing accident. No longer able to hold the glass blowing pipe, he hired others to do the work; Chihuly explained the change in a 2006 interview, saying “Once I stepped back, I liked the view” and pointing out that it allowed him to see the work from more perspectives and enabled him to anticipate problems faster. Chihuly describes his role as “more choreographer than dancer, more supervisor than participant, more director than actor.”

Chihuly and his team of artists were the subjects of the documentary Chihuly Over Venice; the program was the first HDTV program to be broadcast in the United States when it aired in November 1998. They were also featured in the documentary Chihuly in the Hotshop, syndicated to public television stations by American Public Television starting in November 1, 2008.

If you think Dale’s story is inspirational, just wait until you see his art! I’ve included a couple photographs of his work below and would highly recommend you check out his website to learn more about him and see some of his other remarkable pieces.

Hope this finds you feeling healthy!-Mason