Dale Chihuly

An American glass worker I discovered during the applied arts week:

Dale Chihuly, born in 1941 in Tacoma, Washington studied interior design at the University of Washington. He was introduced to glass as a student but discovered the team approach to glass blowing, on which his work depends today, when working in a glass factory in Venini, Venice.

I really admire this sort of work as it is a very old and skilled art to master yet simultaneously modern and exciting.
~~I'm also just a simpleton that is drawn to rainbow colours.~~

As well as the bright colours, I also think that Chihuly has explored the transparency of glass, how light passes through it and how this creates less tangible though as equally stunning shapes and colours.

I am drawn to alien things, coral reefs and those mysterious creatures from the bottom of the sea. With light and colour you can create a world, a habitat for something else and I like the enigma of an unknown form in an unknown space.

"I love to be around water. There is no doubt in my mind that water is conducive to thought. Water allows me to be incredibly creative. The connections between glass and water are so unbelievable and so visual. I work with four materials, of any scale—glass, plastic, water, and ice. And it is really light that makes those materials come alive."

Chihuly

This is a glass sculpture in an aquarium, in bringing his fascination with glass and water together, it becomes so obvious that these forms, that look so alien and out of place on the surface, belong underwater.