Metro Pulse/Artbeat/Dale Chihuly

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What:
It's Alive! Glassworks by Dale Chihuly

Where:
Knoxville Museum of Art, 1050 World�s Fair Park Drive

When:
through September 10

Artist Dale Chihuly knows a thing or two and is willing to share

by Heather Joyner

Driving north of Seattle into the foothills of the Cascades is a bit like getting a massage. As one moves forward into a landscape lush with evergreens, tensions seem to just fall away. At least that was my experience last month when heading toward the Pilchuck Glass School.

Launched by artist Dale Chihuly in the early 1970's, Pilchuck's program now attracts visiting artists and students from around the world for its two-and-a-half week summer sessions—all held on a 54-acre plot smack in the middle of a tree farm belonging to Weyerhaeuser's Anne and John Hauberg. As I neared a cluster of down-to-earth yet sophisticated buildings serving various purposes, I realized that despite Pilchuck's impressive growth throughout the years, it appears to have retained its initial laid-back character. Expensive coffee brewing in the school's dining hall overlooking Puget Sound might be a switch from the early days, but a certain counterculture attitude persists that attracts art world superstars eager to experiment with glassmaking. Says sculptor Maya Lin (the creator of D.C.'s Vietnam Memorial), "There is an energy at Pilchuck that is just charged and which can never disappear because it is in the nature of glass itself."

And what of this vitality that glass possesses? I still can't pin down precisely how the medium manages to so captivate people. Chalk it up to the wondrous transformation of molten liquid into solid matter or to how crucial time is to the glassmaking process or to the fact that light can play in glass as it does nowhere else. What I can say is that the KMA's Chihuly exhibit will be with us for a mere 17 days longer, and if you've not yet experienced it, you should.

As for what a school thousands of miles away has to do with a show in Knoxville, it is this: Pilchuck, like our Arrowmont, is a place that makes palpable the sheer joy of the creative process. The making of art, whether or not translated into finished objects filling museums, is essentially what matters most. True, byproducts of the process can make individuals like Chihuly quite wealthy. But I doubt that's all that drives Chihuly. His desire to pass on knowledge and devote resources to others is a smaller—but no less important—version of the mission of an institution like the KMA. Through education, art-related or otherwise, we are provided a broader perspective on life and alternatives to blindly stumbling through it. Speaking of which, Chihuly has also begun teaching underprivileged and "at-risk" children in Washington and in New Mexico.

In 1994, Chihuly and friend Kathy Kaperick established the "Hilltop Artists-in-Residence Program" at the Jason Lee Middle School in his native Tacoma. One student became drawn in after literally running into the facility in '96, police hot on his heels—a metaphor of sorts for the program's power to lure kids off the streets and inspire more productive activities. And glass may appeal to young people moreso than other mediums, given the built-in drama of its making. Commenting on her Pilchuck School experience, Maya Lin also says, "From the intense exposure to fierce heat to the incredibly delicate way in which you must balance the molten glass, the process is an exercise in contrasts and extremes. Those dynamics are what make glass so exciting to be around." More recent is Chihuly's involvement with a similar program in a Taos, N.M., Pueblo Indian community. According to a People Magazine article from eight months ago, "Chihuly will disrupt his jet-set travels on a dime if [the aforementioned] Kaperick—whom he credits with making him see that glassblowing could alter the course of young lives—calls. [Says Chihuly,] 'Kathy had the concept of how this could be done...I was there to help out.'"

Beyond the KMA's efforts to educate and energize youngsters interested in art, there is downtown Knoxville's Community School of the Arts, now almost 10 years old. In addition to its after-school music and art classes, it offers disadvantaged kids an opportunity to work individually with artists through a "Side-By-Side" program. The highly personal and motivating connection formed between students and their mentors is not unlike the bond Tacoma teens have formed with Chihuly; the difference is that here, numerous artists are willing to share their knowledge and passion, which makes our kids lucky indeed. (Interested in volunteering? Contact Executive Director Jennifer Willard at 523-5684).

So, get to the Chihuly show before it's gone. Who knows?...maybe viewers will come up with new and surprising ways of their own to enrich the world around them.