#When walking into London's Victoria and Albert Museum in 2001, it was a pleasant surprise to find the museum was hosting a Dale Chihuly exhibit. Having been fascinated by a documentary on Chihuly and his work on PBS, this was incredibly fortuitous. The documentary showed the artist and his team preparing large installations to be exhibited over the canals in Venice years earlier. I had wanted to see his work in person - and here it was. The show in London was spectacular. I was not disappointed. Chihuly creates large pieces of art with glass. One might tend to think of art done in glass as tiny, timid, artifacts. His pieces are not tiny nor timid. They are bold, beautiful, whimsical, fluid, translucent, forms of glass. Dale Chihuly has been credited with taking working in glass from being considered "craft" to being truly "art". Some mention his name as the worthy successor to the other great artist in glass - Tiffany. Although their works are very different, they both worked with teams of assistants, and both greatly increased the popularity of art with glass. Tiffany's art went out of style after WWII. Chihuly's innovative new style created a revival and is still alive and thriving.

# Dale Patrick Chihuly was born to working class parents in Tacoma Washington. His father was a butcher and union organizer. At the age of sixteen, Dale suffered a double tragedy when his 21-year-old brother, an aviation cadet was killed - followed several months later by the death of his father from a fatal heart attack. From that time forward, his mother Viola, a homemaker, became even more important to him and was the guiding force in his life. At the age of nineteen Dale discovered an interest in art while steeped in research for a term paper on Vincent van Gogh. He decided to attend the University of Washington in Seattle and study interior design and architecture. As happens with many young students - partying took precedence over schoolwork. After two years he quit school and went to Europe to immerse himself in art. Revitalized after a year of experiencing art - he returned to the University. In 1965 he received his B.A. in interior design from the University of Washington. Experimenting in his basement studio, he tried to blow glass for the first time. He immediately knew that was what he wanted to do.

"That little basement only had a six-foot ceiling, and one night I melted stained glass between four bricks in a little ceramic kiln. I put a pipe in there and rolled it up and took it out and blew a bubble. And I had never seen glassblowing done. As soon as I blew that bubble, I wanted to become a glassblower."
Dale Chihuly, 1996