Chihuly: In the Hotshop

(furnace hissing) (furnace hissing continues) (upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (audience cheering and applauding) - Dale has always been of the school of four pairs of hands are better than just two pairs of hands.

And when you put more heads together, more ideas are gonna come out.

And what comes of that is generally quite amazing.

I mean, I've never in my life encountered anyone like Dale who has this ability to bring people together and bring the best out in them.

- Probably the most important reason that I wanted to do the blow at the Museum of Glass was really to have a reunion of all these gaffers that have worked for me.

And a lot of 'em have worked together and everybody I called was happy to do it.

And I think all of us had a really good time.

- Okay, guys.

We start to make it one Venetia.

Everybody remember something?

- [William] I got a lot of memory to bring back after 20 years.

- Dale was a remarkable glass blower.

You know, many people only associate Dale's glass making with other good gaffers.

But had he chosen to pursue a career as a master craftsman, Dale could have been one of the best American glassblowers ever.

I mean, he had an uncanny ability to work the glass hot.

If he wanted to work it symmetrically, he could work it symmetrically.

It's just that his calling was not to really be a master craftsman.

His calling was to be a artist.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music) (furnace hissing) (upbeat music continues) - [Dale] When I started the Blanket Cylinders or sometimes referred to as the Navajo Blanket Cylinders, they were inspired by an exhibition that I saw at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

I had also started collecting Pendleton blankets some years before that.

It was really an excuse to have a motif to work from, the blanket and the blanket lended itself towards making drawings because they were straight lines like the warp and the weft of a Blanket.

- [Dale] And so I started working with Kate Elliot on developing drawings that could be picked up on the steel plate and then blown into a cylinder shape.

I made them a cylinder shape because it was sort of a neutral format so you could really look at the drawings.

- [Dale] I worked on the cylinder series for about two years, first with Kate and then with Flora Mace doing the drawings.

And the drawings became more and more sophisticated technically.

Give me- - Start with a straight in.

- Give me that much more.

- Okay.

- [Dale] Joey Kirkpatrick, I think came to Pilchuck in 1979 and we started working together shortly after that.

As a team we worked for a long time together.

Anything that needs a drawing on it, I always get a hold of Flora and Joey to work with me.

They're fantastic to work with.

(upbeat music) I like to go as far as I can with the series to feel like I've finished it more or less and then go on to something else.

What happens is after I've worked on a series and leave it, then I'll come back to it five or 10 years later and work on it some more.

In the case of the Cylinders, I went back and worked on it two or three different times.

(upbeat music) - So if you want on this one, you might wanna pick up here and then roll because that's our shard off center there.

- Alright.

That's a big one.

- [Joey] And a shard and some circles.

A little bit of everything.

- Hot damn.

I'm about to bleach.

- Okay, okay.

(people chatting indistinctly) - I think I'll go this way first this time, Joey, and then I'll come back your way.

I'll come back your way.

Alright.

You got it.

You ready?

- Yep.

A lot of way.

Nice.

Watch out, there.

Yeah, that's good.

20 seconds.

- That's good.

You got it.

That line right there.

(audience applauding and cheering) (blowtorch hissing) - All right give me.

A little punishment here.

I'll put it up on the rail.

(upbeat music) (blowtorch hissing) (upbeat music continues) - He's got it.

He's got it.

- Don't rent this paper too much when I'm doing this, I don't want fracture this bottom.

- This interior color's quite nice with white flecks in it.

(upbeat music continues) - There we go.

Hold her.

- Tony.

(audience applauding and cheering) (people chattering in the background) - [Dale] I think it was about 1977 that I was visiting the Washington State Historical Society and looking at their Indian basket collection.

It dawns on me that, hey, wouldn't it be interesting to try to make these baskets outta glass?

A lot of the baskets are old and kind of crumply and they're not always straight and firm.

And so I got into my mind that somehow I wanted to make them asymmetrical.

And so first I would bang 'em with a paddle to beat 'em up a little bit.

But I soon learned that if I just used the heat of the furnace and the fire, that I could get the same kind of movement from the fire itself and it was more beautiful.

So all summer long I made these, I made 'em all outta the same color, kind of a tobacco color.

The name of the color actually in German was Tabak 222.

'Cause all the colors have a number.

That was really the breakthrough series for me.

Probably the most innovational thing I'd ever done in glass was to begin to form glass with fire, with gravity, with heat, with centrifugal force.

I was using just human breath going down into this miraculous material, blowing it up to making it as thin as I could and getting it so hot that it would almost collapse and begin to move.

And so I was pushing the edge of thinness and collapsibility and making new forms.

(bright music) - Stop.

(bright music continues) How you doing man?

Oh, good to see you.

- So glad you came down here.

- I'm so glad I could.

This has been a long time trying to remember this.

Robbie, this time.

(upbeat music) Dale.

So this is the first one, right?

And I'm just kind of trying to remember what we were doing.

- You could do ones like this and then a make a bottom piece to have this go into.

- Okay.

- It'd be like pairs.

- Alright, so this would just be the wrinkler around one?

- Yeah.

- Okay.

Ah it touched.

Did it touch?

- Yeah.

It touched.

It looks like nice tobacco, that color.

- Tobacco looks good.

So anyways, we gotta touch on that.

But everything looks good.

Color?

- Yeah, the wrinkles look good.

- [William] Okay.

- The body wrap you did looked real nice.

- Do some more of those real thin ones maybe next time.

- [Dale] Yeah.

- Where are we putting this?

Joey, that color was perfect.

So if you're gonna do bigger ones, Jim, do the bigger ones.

And I'll put the littler ones into.

- So I'll do like a low shape.

- Yeah, if you do like a lower shape.

That's what he said.

So that's what we'll do.

The last time I made a basket was 25 years ago.

The last time you and I worked together was 20 years ago.

- We started working together as soon as I met him.

The next day or so.

- It was the next day.

- Yeah.

- Actually it was the same day.

'Cause I think I picked you up after midnight.

(laughs) Yeah, see that's it.

That's what I was trying to do in five reheats.

Dave, I'm gonna have you go with a little bit larger diameter punty for me.

- Okay.

- 'Cause I can't hold onto that little one.

- [Dale] I first met Billy Morris in 1978, late at night at the Seattle Tacoma Airport because he was the driver that summer for Pilchuck.

And one of their jobs is to pick up the faculty from the airport.

And just when we got there, Billy said, "I know you work with a team."

He said, "Would there be any chance that I could ever play a part in working with a team?"

- When we got up to the school, I remember he walked onto the pad and it was one of the midnight blowing sessions and he picked up a blow pipe and he gathered some glass and he blew a small piece without using any tools.

And you know, it wasn't the greatest piece of glass I've ever seen blown, but the approach to it was so fresh and I realized, so brilliant, that I was just, I was amazed.

This guy was authentic.

So, you know, at that point of course I said, "Hey, is there anything I can do to help you?"

- [Dale] I remember I told him, I said, "Look I'll be starting at four in the morning.

if you're there at four in the morning, I'll put you to work."

- [William] He says, "Well, yeah, show up on the pat in about four hours."

And we started working together and I worked together with him for 10 years.

(people chattering indistinctly) - [Dale] And he was, you know, unbelievably talented.

He was one of the best I'd ever seen.

And I had already lost the sight of my eye, which made it difficult for me to work.

And then somewhere in there, early eighties, I think I dislocated my right shoulder and that made it impossible to blow glass.

So I had Billy be the gaffer as we called the head of the team.

- Kind of think about the size we were going.

- You want me to make this?

- Yeah, you're making this.

- Okay.

- Okay.

- [Dale] He did such a great job and I really liked actually not being the gaffer.

And so till this day I rarely blow glass.

- [William] There.

Look at that!

- Yeah.

See how stretched out- - That one is nice.

Yeah.

That's the way.

You got good tobacco color too.

- [Dale] I got used to watching what was going on and not doing it.

But I'll tell you, Billy is one of the most talented, one of the nicest people that I've ever had the pleasure of working with.

- Whoops!

(blowtorch hissing) My fault.

- I'm sorry.

(William laughing) (upbeat music) (audience applauding) (upbeat music continues) - [Dale] That felt pretty good.

- Yeah, well that was kind of like, those early earliest ones.

- I was wondering now why you were open.

I think that was about right.- - Yeah.

Yeah.

They were still just, just in a little bit.

(crowd chattering) - [Dale] Now glass is defined as a super cooled liquid and it's transparent like water.

And so the idea that the objects end up looking like they came from the sea is no accident.

It is almost like water itself.

So when you're making and blowing and forming the glass, if you wanna push it towards an organic form that is as if it came from the sea, it happens just naturally.

(upbeat music) - So this is a spiral wrap that's going on right now, which ends up being the decoration.

And it's just a fine thread that's going onto the glass that's just sitting on the surface.

He'll then take it to the glory hole, melt it in, get it good and hot, and then we'll plunge it into the optic mold.

I thought the beast - [Dale] I was making the baskets in the seventies and at one point I wanted to make the baskets thinner and they were already quite thin.

So I stuffed them into what we call an optical mold, which is a ribbed mold that ends up making the glass sort of like corrugated cardboard in terms of structure.

Theoretically that would allow you to make it thinner because it's stronger.

And when I did that, of course that optical mold or that corrugated ribbed feeling made it look like a shell.

So, you know, as soon as I did it, one thought shell.

And then, you know, I liked the idea that it was a shell and so changed the name of, I didn't really change the name from baskets to Seaforms, it's just that the baskets became the Seaforms and then of course we extended and pushed it to a more aquatic feeling.

You know, there's no end to that too.

I mean, I could literally make Seaforms probably for the rest of my life.

And that's a series that I have continued to make because you can always take that in a different way, in a different direction.

- [Dale] I met Benny Moore in 1974 at Pilchuck.

He was particularly good at symmetrical shapes, but he was good at everything really.

He's a fantastic glassblower and he really worked with me on the team and started off with Navajo Blanket Cylinders and then baskets and Seaforms.

(upbeat music continues) (furnace roaring) (upbeat music continues) (people chatting indistinctly) - I got a thin bottom.

Watch your feet.

Take it, Tony.

(upbeat music continues) (glass shatters) (crowd exclaims) (audience cheering and applauding) (upbeat music continues) - Alright.

- Okay.

- Better off there.

- All right.

(audience cheers and applauds) Impressive, huh?

(crowd chattering) - [Dale] You know, I woke up one morning having worked for a year or two on the Seaforms and just decided I wanted to do something different.

And I guess I woke up with the idea that I would work with all 300 colors that were available to us.

That we bought these color rods from Germany.

And so I decided I would use all 300 of them.

And so I put one color on the inside, then sort of a translucent or opaque white in the middle and then another color on the outside.

And because these white was put on as big chunks of white to give it more texture and variety, they ended up looking like clouds.

There is a never ending potential for color with the Macchia because there's so many different color layers and so many different colors available.

We could never exhaust the color possibilities with Macchia.

You do a piece about this size.

- Okay.

- And then I'll have Jimmy do this, we'll do two part Macchia, which means we want to keep the color the same.

- These guys know that?

- No.

- Tell 'em.

I'll tell 'em.

- [Dale] Tell them, yeah.

- John, so these are gonna be two part Macchias.

I'll do this one.

It'll be the smaller one.

Jim will do the lower.

We'll just keep that theme up through these.

So we'll color coordinate these in the set.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (audience cheering and applauding) (upbeat music continues) - [William] Dave.

Do that again.

(upbeat music continues) - Great job.

- That's fine (funky music) (blowtorch hissing) - [Dale] The Persians, that's one of the most difficult series to describe.

I mean it started off that they were geometric shapes.

It was a search for new forms.

- Hey, how many have you seen glass blowing before?

- [Dale] I got Martin Blank when he first came out to work for me from the Rhode Island School of Design to start working on some new forms for me.

I was working with a big team up at Pilchuck on one side of the shop and I got Martin and Robbie Miller to work over in the corner and I'd make little drawings for them.

You know, I might make 20 or 30 drawings on a page.

And then the ones I liked, I'd put an X underneath them and then they would sort of experiment with trying to make that shape.

And we worked for a year on doing only experimental Persians.

You know, we made at least a thousand or more.

And so, you know, I got to pick and choose from these parts and develop a new series.

- [Dale] And the name came from simply, I just liked the name Persian.

It conjured up sort of near Eastern Byzantine, Far East, Venice.

All of the trades, smells, scents.

It was an exotic name to me, so I just called them Persians.

- Yeah.

(audience applauds) Now magically Jim is right behind with a wrapped piece ready to go.

So we keep the beat, the whole movement happening.

(audience applauding) - Ready?

- Watch it there.

Come down close to the pipe.

- Hold it straight out maybe.

- Okay.

- How's that, Dale?

- It's alright.

It's good.

- Take it.

(audience applauding) (people chatting indistinctly) - That's a little big, huh?

Wow.

Okay, guy, we started to make one Venetia.

Everybody remember something?

- A little bit, sure.

- Okay.

Red leaf.

- Red leaf.

Okay.

And what about the stem?

- The stem, but maybe we do do everything red.

We do monochrome.

- And (indistinct) and everything?

- Everything.

Fantastic.

I like it.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (blowtorches hissing) (upbeat music continues) - [Dale] The Venetians started, because Lino came to me and he said, "It'd be great to work with you on a series sometime.

You use all these American gaffers."

Well, I was a little reluctant because most of the American gaffers that I worked with, I trained myself and working with them and they understood the way I worked.

And we worked in an asymmetrical way that's not very traditional.

So working with a real European master that worked symmetrically was gonna be a challenge because my work wasn't symmetrical.

But I said yes, and we made a date for the next summer because Lino came every year to Pilchuck.

You know, that winter I was trying to figure out, well, what am I gonna do?

And I went to Italy sometime during that winter and I saw a great collection of sort of art deco Venetian glass that I'd never seen before in this palazzo.

And I was stunned at how unbelievably innovative and beautiful these 1920s, 30s pieces were.

So, gee, I thought, you know, when Lino came next summer that I would have him make these for me.

I would pretend like I was a designer in 1920s and make these sort of eccentric art deco pieces with reds and blacks and golds and greens and handles.

And so Lino came and I drew sketched one out and we started working and made one.

And by the time the day was over with, I'd already begin to slide into something new.

My mind couldn't stay in the 1920s, I guess.

And I started making more eccentric things.

But I think we worked for two weeks and by the time the two weeks was finished, the series had taken on a life of its own, you know, calling on forms and techniques and aspects of glass from throughout history.

(upbeat music) It's a never ending thing.

I mean, I could make them forever.

I mean, all I have to do is make a drawing, put it up on the wall up next to the furnace and Lino interprets it and he always interprets it in his own way.

So there's a lot of creativity from Lino and the other people on the team.

If you want to make a tall one.

- Okay.

- [Dale] With one or two coils.

- Okay, sure.

- But it doesn't have to be that shape.

- Okay.

- Whatever shape.

- Okay.

- Lagona, whatever.

- We'll do it.

Okay.

- [Dale] I mean, I do drawings for Macchia and Seaforms, but they're usually more of an abstraction or a color.

The Venetians, the drawings really often look like the pieces.

(upbeat music) - [Lino] We start to make two leaf.

(both speak indistinctly) - [Lino] We need to be organized, need to be better at everything.

Okay, great.

I like that.

(blowtorch hissing) - Big torch.

Not my fault.

Put that in the back, Kelly.

Stay there.

(upbeat music continues) Slowly to me.

(Lino speaks indistinctly) (blowtorches hissing) (objects clinking) (audience applauding) - Good job.

- Thank you.

- Thanks, Lino.

- Thank you.

- Very nice, huh.

Beautiful.

(audience applauding) (blowtorch hissing) - Jaco, Jaco, Mario.

- [Dale] You know, the Putti are these little characters.

They're male and they were used in Renaissance in Baroque times and they were put up in the church or in the paintings and around, and they were carved out of wood or made outta plaster.

And they were meant to sort of make people feel good and to get people together.

And maybe they were a little mischievous, but not normally, they were just meant to be a good time.

And they looked good.

And it talked about probably youth.

Now I must have seen a Putto in glass or a thought, or I don't know how I came about it, but I asked Pino to make a Putto and it was just, I just loved it in glass.

He looked better in glass than he ever looked in wood or plaster or bronze.

It's just somehow the perfect material for a Putto is glass.

And so whenever I can get Pino to come over or sometimes I go to Murano, I always wanna make Putti with him.

I just love these Putti.

So I make 'em, I mean it's a completely, you know, whacked out series that doesn't relate to anything else I do.

Not unlike, I suppose the Venetians were completely different from anything I had done.

Thank you.

(upbeat music) (blowtorch hissing) (upbeat music continues) (people speaking in Italian) (upbeat music continues) (blowtorch hissing) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) I wanted to tell you a little bit about Pino Signoretto.

I consider him the best glass sculptor alive.

He's an unbelievable artist.

And tonight we're gonna make a lobster, which he's working on right now, that'll be attached to a stopper that will then go on a big jug.

Certain animals look really, really good in glass.

The lobster's one that I think looks better in glass than anything else.

So enjoy watching one of the great masters that's ever been.

(audience applauding) (upbeat music continues) (people speaking Italian) (blowtorch hissing) (upbeat music continues) (blowtorch hissing) (Tom Tom Club singing in French) (people speaking indistinctly) - Okay, go!

(audience applauding and cheering) (audience applauding continues) (upbeat rock music) (upbeat rock music continues) - [Dale] You know, I have a great time working with Jimmy Mongrain because he's very strong, very skilled, and he's a great guy to work with.

And one thing that I really like about him is that he loves to work large.

Doesn't make any difference what it is, what series he's working on.

They just keep getting bigger and bigger.

And I encourage that because I don't know, I'm sort of the same way.

You know, I like pieces big.

(upbeat music continues) Now Ikebana is a word, you know, that means, it's you know, a ritualistic type of flower arranging in Japan that I don't even know if I understand it's total relevance.

But it's a very high art form and I just love the word Ikebana.

So I used it because many of the Venetians, you know, had flower forms coming out of them.

And I usually use the word Ikebana when the flower in the Venetian or flowers become separate.

We pushed it as far as we could with the Venetians.

The only other thing we could do is begin to make separate parts and add them into it.

And that's really where the term Ikebana comes from.

If it's a Venetian or a form that has separate parts coming out of it, then it's an Ikebana.

(upbeat music continues) - [Jimmy] Okay, Michael.

- All right.

(upbeat music continues) Let me blow on it.

Don't worry about (indistinct) (upbeat music continues) Slow down.

(objects clattering) (upbeat music) - We gotta go.

- Go fast!

We're good now.

We're good.

- Keep it on center as best you can.

Keep it coming.

- [Dale] It was about 10 years ago that I went to the island of Nii-jima, an overnight boat ride off of Tokyo in the Tokyo Bay.

And while I was there, I was reminded of the Japanese fishing floats, which always intrigued me that I used to collect on the beach when I was a kid in Washington on the Pacific Ocean.

So not long after I was in Nii-jima, I started a series of round balls and the idea was to make them big and to use a lot of color in different ways.

And so we started making these floats that eventually got up to 40 inches in diameter, which is by far the largest piece of glass that we make.

It's just, it's a huge piece of glass.

One of the most complicated things we've ever made.

And it takes a big team, very focused with a great glass blower.

In this case it's Rich Royal.

- [Rich] Blow, please.

- [Dale] The floats were, I don't know what it was with the floats.

I mean there was this connection to the Japanese fishing float, but there was also just the simplicity of this beautiful sphere.

One of the most natural forms that you can make in glass is a sphere.

So, you know, it's a simple thing to make.

If it weren't big.

You know when it gets big, it gets really complicated to make.

- Drooling.

You don't care if we put foil on or not.

Do You?

- [Dale] If it's on the outside.

- [Rich] It'll be on the outside.

- Then don't put silver.

- [Rich] We're not using silver at all.

It's all gold.

- Yeah, gold is good.

- [Rich] All gold.

(audience exclaiming) - [Dale] (laughs) Whoo!

- Take it Jimmy.

- Got it.

- [Group] Oh!

(blowtorch hissing) - [Rich] Stop.

- [Dale] It fell off a blow pipe.

He might save it.

I don't know if it touched down.

If it touched down, he can't.

- Stay on it.

- [Dale] I don't think it did touch down.

He probably would've thrown it out.

- [Rich] Okay, get on it now, Michael.

(blowtorch hissing) That other torch is actually- - [Dale] I don't really like making these things.

They're a little dangerous all the way around.

- I don't know if this is gonna work.

It gives us something to do while we're waiting, huh?

That looks good.

I think we're done.

- [Announcer] Try and roll it over here.

- Gotta be gentle.

- [Announcer] Nice save.

(audience applauding) Hot shot team.

(people speak indistinctly) - [Rich] Got it, Dave?

Get down low.

- Right.

- Nice and gentle guys.

- Bring that shoulder back there.

Oh, oh!

(audience applauding) Okay, keep it turning.

Keep it turning.

Keep it turning.

One direction.

Keep the compressed air on it.

Go!

- Hard, hard.

- Blowing.

- Go, go, go.

- Blowing.

Blowing.

- [Team Member] That's as hard as it'll go.

- That's good.

Keep.

- That's good.

- Stop.

- No, don't stop.

- [Team Member] Keep blowing!

- I like that shape, Rich.

- [Rich] I do too.

Yeah, let's go.

- Okay, go.

- [Dale] I can't believe it.

Didn't have a touchdown, did it?

- Oh yeah, it had a hole.

That's why (indistinct) started falling all over the place.

(audience applauding) - It had a touchdown?

- Yeah, it kind of folded back on itself.

- They did it.

- Best save ever.

- Best save ever.

- Biggest save ever, anyway.

You don't have to be a very good glassblower when you can fix stuff.

- I got another one.

(upbeat music) - Okay, Robert.

- Jimmy Mongrain.

(audience cheering) Jimmy Mongrain.

(people cheer) - [Rich] I think we just go right to the bat.

After we heat it.

- [Dale] Robbie just said, when Dave Walters is hobbling, you know, it's heavy.

- [Dale] I always said I wasn't gonna make any more of these.

They scare me.

But what we do now, we line 'em with silver and then we line 'em with foam so that if they break, nothing much happens, but they could break while you're making.

- [Team Member] It's too big for the oven.

- [Dale] Won't go in the oven?

(audience applauding) (glass shattering) (audience groaning) - Stop.

(upbeat music continues) - That's a great piece.

(audience applauding) (people chattering) (pencil scratching) (blowtorch hissing) - [Team Member] The outside of this?

- On the outside.

Should go around the cardboard tube.

Wrap those ones.

- Sure.

- [Team Member] Still the same colors?

- Blow!

Blow!

Blow!

Blow!

(audience applauding) - Yeah, figure out what to work it.

Let's make one.

- [Dale] Joey DeCamp, who heads up my glass shop, I think first came to work with the team in 1988.

And he's really fantastic at making Fiori parts.

People, you know, have asked what inspired me to do the Fiori, it wasn't so much trying to replicate plants as it was a way to work with all the techniques that we've learned for the last 35 or 40 years.

So as you look at the Fiori, you'll see all the other series of my work in there somewhere.

I think.

- [Joey] Swing it, swing it.

(blowtorch hissing) - [Dale] You know, there are many different styles to the Fiori and Joey does a great job at making those.

- I just thought, you know, it'd look really cool to have a chandelier with those paddles coming out.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) - [Joey] No air.

No air, no air.

(audience applauding) - To participate in something like that was, I'm not gonna say it was a once in a lifetime thing.

'cause I'd like to think something like that might happen again someday.

(upbeat music) (upbeat rock music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music)