Chihuly and the Masters of Venice

The the. The. The. The the island of Murano in Venice Italy is home to hundreds of glass blowing factories many of which have been producing glass for centuries. Seattle artist Dale Chihuly learn the secrets of glass here some 30 years ago. Today two Venetian masters are widely recognized as the supreme practitioners of their craft. One is hailed as the world's greatest living glass blower. The other may be the greatest glass sculptor of all time. But because of the fierce rivalries

among them around no factories least two masters have never worked together. Tonight Dale Chihuly works one on one with each of these incredible Masters and then brings them together for the first time in an unprecedented three way collaboration. In the thousand years history of Venetian glass a glass of wine. There are very few may not tell you patrons. I can imagine that there are more than a handful. Of artisans. Of this enormous unbelievable skill. And Sensibility and leadership. You know you have to have all of these different elements to make a good glassblower. When you have an extraordinary master like Leno. One of the things you notice

right away is their degree of focus is so connected to the material is so much history so much information that he's he can predict what's going to happen sometime in the glass and tell you what he wants to do because this one is true. I only wish I had this kind of feeling way make a some pieces the pieces don't me don't lay there this is a bet the ladies don't delay this. All of this last piece of the glasses speaks. The glass is absolutely I am sure the glass if you just have a voice and give me one kind of feeling and then you find the ways of the great maestro has to find the way from the material a salute to being ever the one going to communicate back with The Voice. Oh yes tell it. If you're given these pads it is better if you're talking together. So to me you know I more or less quit blowing glass myself

in the late 70s. And ever since then I've been doing a lot of drawing to show the gaffer's what it is that I want to make. It's probably the only series that I make where there is an actual drawing for the piece. And all I have to do is make a drawing and put it up on the wall next to the furnace and you know interprets it. And I always interprets it in his own way. So the lot of creativity you know and the other people. But Brian usually only took five or ten minutes to make for the next piece. But I want to do two or three other variations on one that I drew inside what I wanted to make. And then as I'm watching the piece and making the drawing at the same time I'm getting inspired by what Leno and the crew is doing and I'm getting ideas in flight form color size. Color you know thinking about a new way to make in addition a new bed you know a new leaf. A new whatever a new something that nobody has ever thought of before. Because for an artist

you know that is really the exciting part is to make something that no one's ever seen before. The Venetians started because Leno came to me and I said look at he said it would be great to work with you on a series sometime you use all these American gaffers gaffers as is the name of the master and he said I'd love to work with you some time. Well I was a little reluctant because a lot of American gaffers that I worked with I trained myself and working with them and they understood the way I worked and worked in an asymmetrical way that's not very traditional. So working with a real European master that work symmetrically was going to be a

challenge because my work wasn't symmetrical. So but I said yes and we made a date for the next summer because Leno came every year to tell Chuck that winner I went to Italy and I saw great collection of sort of Art Deco Venetian glass that I'd never seen before in this plot self. And I I was stunned at how unbelievably innovative and beautiful these 100 20s 30s pieces were. Gee I thought you know when Leno came next summer that I would have to make these for me I would these 10 like I was a designer. In 1000 20s and up and make these sort of eccentric hard to cope pieces with. Reds and blacks and gold and green. Handles them. Within about a day of doing these pieces. I started making them more eccentric and more bizarre and less art deco and using any sort of source I could. You can see from the drawings the progression of a very simple part deco classic art deco

pieces. Two more radical and more radical pieces with horns and stouts and flowers and big handles coming out of them. So the series within a few days changed from being something I was going to kind of replicate for something of its own. Why.

Ya ya. The I AM. None of us is. Let's try to break it. By the time the two weeks was finished the series had taken on a life of its own. You know calling on forms and and techniques and aspects of glass from throughout history. And so it became very it became a creative series totally unlike anything I've ever done. We enjoyed it so much that Leno would come back. You know every three or four months and I'd make another week or two with with OF THE NATION. This went on for about 10 years. Always sort of stretching this series into something new that you know it's

a never ending thing I mean I could make them forever. Longer disputed the Minbari cool of his vocal vocal coming to give us. Good OK kick a. Few Minissha. Cool stuff you want to call them or to put it I think they're OK. I visit some of the good I mean the history of the throne of NATO. Some of it I mean. In Mexico many comment and tell us a little me through the closer you are to convert them into what I call the local. Like the last one. Only leaves so limited.

With a. Fairly wide opening. Then with the doubters out there will love. Your stand. Yes go inside or outside one in one out. Will it.

Thanks for five people assisting Lito to turn the poor as we call it to protect his hands to open the glory hole. I mean that alone takes takes up to six people right there and at this point the peace of the long and its precarious ends on a money you know in its ways. Thirty five and we got the strongest people we can hold in that piece. And so you know you want to get as much on the piece every time it comes out of the boil as possible. You know you don't want to have to put on one bit. Go and read it. Bring it back and put on one bit. I want to try to get through for a bit son and then you probably need another five or six people just preparing the parts that are going to be brought over to late now because it is we start bring

in Handel's or prints or ribbons or coils or levis. They have to come quickly. Otherwise it takes too long to make the peace. In the meantime we've got people working on color. You know starting with base color. There's color that's added on to Bubbles this color that's picked up by going through Jimmy's this color this dusted on it's colored It's wrapped on and all these parts each part needs to be colorized as we go along. From a purely technical standpoint Leno did a lot of things on the Venetians which he does not do in his own work a lot of the handles the flowers the wraps things that interest me and a lot of other young glassblowers very much so you look at the Venetian and you look at me you know making a Venetian scene and learn. A phenomenal amount about glass blowing techniques. You make a trip with. What they got when I don't have a

knot on £3. The Red Sox everybody. OK. Maybe if you had disappeared it was you. And your mother there and I got on the poker room and I got on that though that you never know if you want to place them for an hour that I would I be able to get us started. Every detail about where they're going to be in the hallway which is not it you know that you're for when you're cheating if they did have a beating in front of you know going to book you know what you know. They are fighting because he. Thought his father could put out a particular body like the pic which you know your budget would like us and we got to go because I want to see it. In addition to this unbelievable skill and generosity. And energy that he can. You know do for 10 hours a day in our shop. I don't know how he has the ability to go shopping and then go out and cook in cook dinner and then entertain everybody and you know and and be nice to

everybody. Beautiful beautiful. Maybe a little more butter. But. I feel very comfortable. Something you probably see out of his or might be from what I know you'd think a fairly very well I think. You're very honest way I feel very comfortable here. Probably some Thai I feel much more comfortable. Yeah they went out. But I do you know. Where we. Are going to look at the URL I really want another put somebody thought I want to look at from

what he got together and they were a bit off in this group of people come I don't know. It's like you. Can Google on the county's number. And identity of. Who. So. Much that I don't want altar offer like. Yes. Well. Technically. Like I said. That's a glassblower I was really in thrall because I had it hadn't been pushed that far

yet. I mean everybody that was involved in that project learned a lot about the process of glass blowing from watching things get pushed to the very edge and with never a reason not to push it without having him do it. That's right. These are the biggest ovens in town right. And the first piece he put in the box went from floors ceiling in one of those ovens first one out of the gate bang. Yeah. It's touching the top of the box and from there are now that's the way it went beyond. The scale. And the complexity of them was was unlike anything that I was aware of that had been done here anyway and that in a country I mean there's there's got to be an absolute limit to what a human body can endure in terms of scale when it comes to born last will and you know more or less we hit the limit a few years ago and we more or less stopped and it

coincided with Leno's own work you know blossoming. But just about the time the series. You know sort of stopped. I think we've just about hit the limit and that's probably one of the reasons that we were both sort of let it stop but I mean we know we went as high as four feet beyond. The Eon. Ya. Ya. Ya. The big Venetians are such a technical tour de force. You're limited to what you can

do if you work in this huge scale there's a lot of things you can't do it is too big to handle. You know you're working so big that we were sort of restricting ourselves. And I decided that we would be. We go all the way back and make them small. And I call them the piccolo Venetians and by having all that experience making the big ones I could now make the little ones with all that knowledge and that was much freer to make the little ones. So by going down to a much smaller scale. We're able to do a lot of different things that we couldn't do in a big scale. And of course we can make them faster so we could scram it more. That's how they came about. And then of course right away I begin to like them as a series on their own. So many things have it have occurred since. Since Leno's as you

know all the years of work that he's done here is made a profound impact on the American studio movement. For all artists not only Dale but I mean everybody as far as learning basic fundamentals of working with licenses enabled people like myself and Don to marry Oni and rich Royle. Bill Morris all different kinds of people. To really take glass one step further having. Learned some of these basic foundations that are so important and are passed on by the by you know. He's a very worldly kind of man in that most most master blowers was in the Venetian glass culture don't really venture out too much and of course there's been the centuries upon centuries of traditions that. Have. Always isolated the Italian master blowers on the on the run away and that's always been no no for them to go elsewhere. Needles always had the attitude that the more one shares with other people.

You know. The better off. One is and. I think after we after his first summer here Pilchuck he saw this fabulous movement that was happening in America and this freedom and this new way of thinking of working with ones. That he really realized that you know America is the place to be because you know I mean they've been working with glass on the run over centuries of guns over it but it's gotten kind of stagnant. There. Was actually a. Very stagnant thing. That has really just become more of a commercial venture and. Lino seeing the art scene that was happening with last year you know made him want to spend more time in America and I think it's affected his work as well. He saw that Venice was going one direction and that here there was this tremendous spirit and that it should be cultured cultivated and allowed to flourish. That generosity and that honesty is his Leno's legacy.

I think you know those two portraits of Leno because you get both elements you get the. And I think about the it you know the intensity and the focus you know and you get the other side with this one. Yeah. Yeah you know I mean this is though this is right in those and you get he had he really balances that doesn't it believably. I love those two shots together. You know it was a perfect gentleman go in there oh just get out of it I mean. Going to Bed time. Lieberthal you found it. I'm going to be at the community you know unless you've got 30 funny took a look at their children on their way as to when they sing you know they put a cue there on your senior called me a king overfunded technique I mean but a kid there was a penny come into money. But our OK Callie brought though a spin gently push on a out out in many of the same chat with David aim for is far to long without a paddle we

let me order cause like this before some of it. Good here you meant it because he had a future. An. The. What we're seeing here. Is. Without a doubt. The greatest. There are. Perhaps 2000 years of. Mormon history whatever. This is. One of the reasons that I can tell you is that he is the greatest. Technician that exists or maybe ever existed is that if you look in any museum or Morano to Corning to anywhere in the

world you will not see objects. Of this. Size and come. As important as the ability. There's also this unbelievable ness the Peano have with his hands. And it's sort of like. The head. The hand. And the heart. And the gut all working. It's almost three years yet. You haven't.

Yet heard. So what I'm doing here is is a series. Of on and off mostly writing and that they then go on for and then afterwards will make us. Big says that these go on. So they'll end up being probably five feet high. Did you see him using torture constantly using torture

to keep the temperature they. Come back. And the front. Part. Or parts up otherwise. Presto it breaks. And often breaks the shock of all that as you. Work with him. Amber along the beginning to have. His ever Manning that's for. Sure. You know 2000 degrees for about six feet. So you have to be careful. Just one. One brush of the hand in your hands burn can be very bad.

You know. The best there ever was. Part of that is you know. As a small fact we were headed. And he develops a lot of the equipment that it takes to make these things. The track you see here on the floor. Was a Peano invention. And you need this track other things. You need all of these sort of simple mechanisms in order to handle. The nice. Guys.

Everybody on. Board is not a person out there doesn't have to know exactly what they're doing. But you'll see as many as three people. Working. For. Them For. Many years three people burning a. Hole. And then in the meantime some. You know. They're getting stuff already put on. My. Makeup. Yeah. So. The more complex it. Gets. The more people you know the size of the. 10 people. It's kind of a nice size that's bigger than most ever most like he would his team and. With maybe 40 people.

But when it gets this complicated you know they're you know well. Right. Yeah yeah. I remember one day we had seven people on the team might had one or two more than we needed but better one of them with. The money. You know you don't do a full scale zero.

This piece is going to be a light pole. The. Same. As a single. Photo. Right. We have an animal and I look. I looked over. And said. What. Do you think you want to make. I want to I want to put on a fish. Which one would you want to do what you want to be like. So something like it ought to be but it can make a make believe fish doesn't have to be.

But. Somehow the. Booty. Just looks. Extraordinary and. You know it looks good and you know traditionally they were done in a wood and they were done they were cast metal and of course they were you know. Painting. Renaissance and earlier in the time. But somehow that's the bottom of it that's in the photo. MARTIN Yeah that's the that's the but. Then. But somehow out of. To me the pretty looks best out of us. I don't know what it is because you can see sort of through it. It's sort of it's just. He's happier and and that's what the beauty. I don't even you know the beauty was not Miss GVS

but he made people I say he because of the purity are always male. And they made people feel good and they watched over you. Now it's going to probably get ready to cut in the in the legs. First. There he is he's marking where the legs are going to be. Once twice he's also put in the crack of the of the bottom of the same probably. There it is. There is the crack right there. For the you know the food has got to be. You know he's got to be chubby. First across. There's a there are the legs with the legs me. To. The stomach. You know if. You. Want to go you know. Right now I want to.

Get right. With the honey. The triple x. Is going to go back and forth about three times. So there you see he's moving up. He's moving the pun t which is a word that means bridge is moving it. That's kind of the bridge between the piece and the metal and he's moved it up and down to get it. C wants to know if it's too soft to still. When he gets ready he's going to put a little water on the pier on the blowpipe and not at all. Or should we say I'm going to put a lot of water. So.

Water just the right amount to make it. Break. A lovely way. Now it starts to get heavy. Now it's out there on the blower on the run. Honey we're using a blow pipe. Funny. How this is where it usually takes the longest reach. Temperature in his boil somewhere like around twenty five hundred degrees Fahrenheit. It's even hotter than the furnace. Wanted as hot as they can. So basically this point I think we're going out ourself for part. We're going to have the head of the Pluto which he makes first. Then the animal which you make second. The body of the Pluto which makes Third be you know working on. The stopper part which will go on. Now with a place. To. Fit. On to the stopper. So it's he's nearly done this.

Gives him a nice little platform and I took a look at this and maybe there's people like this rather than think he is going to crash. Breaking the fence right. Only nice to know that you spent with him anyway. I cannot always go you know what I call myself it's going to be more right right you know. What I mean yeah I can myself when I know I can't contradict. Me you just. Gotta let it. Go. I don't. Want to get on so it's likely you know you know something that I wish I would stop. Telling. You. OK here

we go. One beautiful soul. Stuff. Behind. OK here we go. So now it. Becomes very. Clear. Really difficult for now. Foley's weight has double. That of water. Hundred books she almost got burned there was the hand travelling up on the old one that looks good. You know. Well we know.

No one. Can love a. Horse. Going up on the oh. This is very precarious going into the glory hole. The end of the twenty five hundred degree inferno. He knows grabbed hold of it now wants to reheat it wants to take it out here he comes out now. Yes. Then come. Now with him. Now we come up. We lift it up. See she said. To feel. To feel like we're right. There.

Why. You know. That I'm. On here. Who has. The. Right write. Software in the. Us. Marxist Oh right. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh hey. OK. Fine I. Know where you. Going.

Yeah why. Hey yeah. Yeah yeah. Thank you. OK couldn't have been happier. Yeah. Stop. You got it right. OK. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah you. Know. Really nice. Guy. You. Know. OK. I am. I am. At least from the. The

way. My is throwing a party or being in Europe or me to the US. Thank you. When we started Pilchuck in 1071 one of the most important aspects of it was to bring in the greatest artists and craftsmen from around the world and of course we turned soon to Italy to bring in the you know the most extraordinary glass masters that we could. We brought in Leno tell you a truly great glass blower that. That works now so much around the world and in Seattle. And we eventually brought in peanuts in your recto the greatest glass sculptor You know one of the really extraordinary talents of all time and glass and I've been very fortunate to be able to work with both Leno

Tahlia patron and you know senior at over the last 10 years and they've played a very important role in the formation of my work. Here's my question for you guys. How much. Have we learned from the Italian masters and how much they learn from us. I think since 79 when Leno first came on what I found what we were receiving were centuries of technique and knowledge from just a couple of guys. I've learned. Phenomenal glassblowing from Leno and all of my sculpting from Peano just to watch centuries and centuries of this history and their personality their belief and make it happen is extraordinary. I think from I think it's equal as for me there's no way you can equal what we give back to them but I do know that every master I've seen comes to the states says My God there

are women on the path. My god these people are going to be gone for a few weeks look at them they're all NEPAD and while they're pretty good. It happened to be that I was blowing glass down here on the Phoenician. We know. Tino. Was working up the Pilchuck teaching and then asked me if I would come up and do a demonstration with Pino make a design that Pina would would would would sculpt or so I said I would and then I suggested that I bring Lino along and that so that I would make something that people would make a part for a sculpted solid part and Lino would blow and we put them together. And there's there's always a certain rivalry between the greats and any medium but you can imagine two great glass floors from Italy from around oh this was the moment I remember it was a picture it was the first time you brung together and it was like once the greatest in the both the greatest and you just don't mix the two greatest It's just your No one wants to

you know how to get a meal. Yeah you got to give up you got to I got to give up my bench to somebody else I don't want to I want to be a star you know I mean everyone's got that kind of you know it's like that little it's this little you know who's going to who's going to who's going to the gentleman and say you know please take my bench. But I remember like you know comes over to the vase you know made this choro Lee has got the vase he's got the teen people comes over the squirrel and you know goes to grab this grow and Peter goes no no you know Lena goes yes yes. And finally you know just as the gentleman just said put it on and you just put it on and you gave up the bench. That's how great glass was. Can correct and so any mistake no matter how natural the move is something goes wrong they instantly reflect change and make a decision. Just like when Pino brought that over. He may or may not of instinctually grab the county but it didn't take long for him to understand what the dynamics were you know he was not a pilot at that point so how do you do that and make it fun and make it good and

it's complicated cause I don't think we really hit it. The one that you hear on was when we were doing the two of them together in Seattle that was phenomenal. You knew that you were you were fighting the tradition all the way that this was not. Going to happen. We were going to change anything it was the what was happening with each other you know it was a one time deal that maybe you could repeat again but this was not going to affect Anyway the glass with everybody on. The ship. Right. When we started the set the studio up there was some question and concern about well who was going to get the manager's bench over there and who was going to get this small home bench over here and why we were in the house in the hallway and you're like oh yeah are you going to movies gory All right here. Run day comes if you change the tally on all the sunflowers you know you know mom you know and I just OK.

He would have them do you know with the goat feet. A. Little bit. To make him a little bit evil. So lay. The fence all right everything together you know so like yeah everything's fine. OK but I had it. Maybe the flour could be on its side. So more birthday Kahlo. So the flour goes up and. Up on top of the flour. Lol. I. The two of them were aside on the on a bench in the hall and Leno said

something like You know when when that piece that dragon dropped on the floor I thought it was done and we were just going to put the piece away as it was but then you you picked it up and you made it again you fixed it and repaired it in record time and we finished the piece as we had planned. So I was really impressed with that. Leno said that the Peano you know said that's a piece I remember that Greg and I went Yes well but I mean I would maybe I'm bound it right at the virtual city of Peano right. That dragon was like in six pieces on the floor. Boom boom boom like in two minutes the dragon's reconstruct and I had never seen such a miraculous recovery. Soprano. Working with a great master no matter what goes wrong they can correct it. The mind is so fast but they know how to. They know how to change directions and fix it right away. And I always look for that you know in a young glass blower you know to see what their potential is to be a great master to see how fast they learn to be able to correct a bad

situation. You know if you get a young glass blower coming into a strange shop first thing they start doing is complaining that something's too hot or something's too coal or the tool bench is the wrong height other than what is a master do they walk and there's no complains is known as just into the work. Yes. Glass blowing in general. Has done faster than you know. The bigger the team the better the more complicated the work to get things should be and that's what we were doing. Pretty complicated. Yeah. Yeah. Ah. Yes all right. I think that experience brought him closer. I don't know if

we could have done what we did. Oh I don't want to have that not happy you know. This is the street that I worked on in 1968. Real great try. And I have a studio right above the needy. But 200 feet down that way. When you work at one factory out here you don't go into another. It's just an unwritten rule. Because of the secrecy thing so I don't know how long they've been blowing glass here but about twelve hundred years there's hundreds of factories on this little island which is about a mile long. But there's still great glass floors here and we're going to see a couple of more come today. We're going to work in piano shop and have piano and lino.

Working there are going to be working separately side by side making chandelier parts. To have them get together and work in one of the other fellow's factories I think is pretty unprecedented and the only thing I can say is wow we were able to get it done or Dale was here because because Dale was behind it all. If we made some. Form of. Why. Not here. But at the end the transparent day. What about. Below.

But it's there's a lot of collaboration involved. I just hope you know to put seat forms anything from the see on a form that I can I want like this for laying out and made like that one so I go and go like this or. But here I was primarily concerned with the scene of if I could get them to work together and and and if so how I would feel and what Id be like. And then hopefully making something that would be memorable in this. I don't think it's ever happened before. Al.

But. I don't know if you know that as a favor started working with L.A. or or vice a versa or they did it because it was more practical or they did it in the in the spirit of the thing. I think they both knew that. But you know we were there making a show at the same time. And the way it happened.

Almost 30 years ago I studied on the island of Murano to learn about glass. And some ways maybe I could go back and share something. Really I want to show off. I don't know what I was but I guess I mean when I went there it's wanted to go there. I want to go to Venice and I want to go blow glass with the Italians with the Americans. And it's you know through all the stuff in there and see what.