Artist tickles imagination

Dale Chihuly sets intricate creations free inside Tacoma's Traver Gallery

BY ROSEMARY PONNEKANTI | The News Tribune • Published May 10, 2008

If you're a Dale Chihuly fan, there is a show in June you'll want to book plane tickets for.

Next month, the glass master will mount a solo show at San Francisco's de Young Museum and Legion of Honor. It's not only his first West Coast show in a while, it's his biggest show ever, with 11 rooms and thousands of pieces of his signature swirly, grandiose glass.

It's a comeback of sorts, as the artist has seen some lean years with only a few shows, a lawsuit and major depression.

But you don't have to go to California to see either Chihuly or his latest work. An exhibition opening Saturday at Tacoma's Traver Gallery not only showcases recent work and a personal appearance at the opening, but also marks the start of a new relationship as Traver becomes Chihuly's sole Northwest representative.

The sheer scope of the de Young show invites the question of whether Dale Chihuly still is the darling of glass art.

Although it's not a cheap exhibition - "My shows tend to be kind of expensive," says Chihuly - the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco must expect a high turnout based on the name.

While Chihuly's shows have been limited in the last two years, they've certainly garnered crowds: A 2005 show at the Colorado Fine Arts Center drew 71,000 people, the center's biggest show ever, according to communications director Charlie Snyder.

Since Chihuly's first glass-in-the-garden exhibition in 2001, there have been eight such shows at venues from London's Kew Gardens to the Phipps Conservatory in Pittsburgh, Pa. At the Phipps, the eight-month show in 2007 doubled attendance to 400,000 and increased membership by 56 percent, museum officials say.

Since the Tacoma Art Museum Chihuly cell phone tour was introduced in 2006, about 4,500 calls have been made to the self-guided tour of Tacoma's public Chihuly works. An August 2006 Chihuly residence at the Museum of Glass drew huge crowds, requiring timed tickets and long lines.

Commissions, too, seem to keep rolling in. A towering red-icicle chandelier hangs in the Ballard studio, ready for transportation to a private buyer; a massive sculpture for a yacht lurks in the corner like an octopus. Chihuly's studio wouldn't release either buyers' names or prices.