There’s a lot unusual about Tacoma’s Museum of Glass, starting with its unusual building, and continuing with its commitment to making as well as displaying studio art glass work. The startling cone that juts above its roof is not just design—below it is the museum’s ‘hot shop’ where glass is blown and formed in tremendous heat, heat that needs a way to escape.
And it was our One-Clue Mystery, but no mystery at all to George G!
In the hot shop, resident artisans and artists work with visiting artists and trainees learning the work. Much of the work done there goes elsewhere, but a fair proportion of the contemporary work in the Museum’s displays has been made there in the twenty years since its opening.
That includes the three above, Green Leaf by Dante Marioni, made in 2012; Springarpa, also 2012, by the Italian artist Davide Salvadore, who used both blown and carved glass along with cords, and Shoe, a 2004 collaboration between Amber Hauch and Pino Signoretto, which combines blown and hot-sculpted glass. Last is Meandering Stream by Kait Rhoads.
But the work in the hot shop isn’t limited to established artists: The museum has a wide variety of teaching and outreach programs, which include one in which younger children are encouraged to design images they’d like to see in glass.
Those picked in the Kids Design Glass program are then made in the shop, with one copy for the designer and another for the Museum’s collection. That’s Bacon Boy, above.
In lobby exhibits, poster walls reflect on the history of glass in society and the changes that glassmaking and glass production have undergone over time. But, those are really only a prelude to stepping into the hot shop and watching it happen.
The arena-like setting, with a live narrator and huge overhead screens make it possible to follow the process; the narrator does a good job of getting in with the answer before you start wondering “But why’s he doing that?” or “What’s that tool she’s using?”
Watching for nearly an hour (time flies when you’re having a good show!) made clear what’s meant when this is described as team work. Conceivably a solo glassblower could do some things, but there is so much heating and cooling, holding still while someone shapes or cuts it’s hard to believe anyone would want to do this work alone.
In its general exhibit areas, the museum shows not only glass, but the ways in which it complements, mirrors or contrasts with other art forms, comparing how they show or hide images, and how images relate to each other.
In this pair for instance, the narrative draws attention to the use of silhouette and arrangement of elements. Blue Sun, by Cappy Thompson is paired with Alfredo Arrequin’s Triste Frida, an image of Frida Kahlo. Thompson also made this huge wall screen that used blown sheets and back painting.
Tim Tate’s We Rise Up, above, is one of the works in a special exhibition of glass works by members of the LGBTQ community. It’s made of cast-glass pieces, pieces of mirror and LED lights to create a space that can’t be there, but is. Tate says he hopes everyone will fill the space with an image of someone loved and lost, especially in the era of AIDS.
There’s also an exhibition on of the most Art-Deco work of Rene Lalique, the French artist in glass who created not only beautiful works in glass, but a mass market for glass both as decor and as stylish packaging. Only room here for a sampler and for one stunning coffee-table piece, but I’ll come back to him in another blog.
And now, as is inevitable these days, we come to Dale Chihuly, the one glass artist whose name everyone knows. Chihuly had a role in the Museum’s founding, but to its credit, this is not a museum about Chihuly, it’s a museum that includes him and recognizes his influence on others.
That includes Philip Phibbs, who had just retired as a university president in 1992, was involved in Tacoma’s plans for recovery and regrowth, and was looking for projects to revitalize decaying industrial areas. After a conversation with area native Chihuly, Phibbs decided that a glass museum would be just right. They worked together on the plan that Phibbs presented and won approval for.
Even for those of us who have been to Chihuly exhibitions for years, the Tacoma collection offers some surprises. Not so much the chandelier and macchia bowl set, but pieces that seem unique such as this piece in a Venetian style with silvered glass and amber. It’s a 2009 piece, and a tribute to thes master Lino Tagliapietra, who taught him as an apprentice in Venice.
To me, though, the most startling piece was this piece, Black Cylinder #51. Made at the Museum in 2006, it’s described as ‘blown glass with cane drawing pickups.’ I can’t recall another piece with so little light passing through or such intricacy of small-line detail. And the picture barely conveys how stunning it is. 
We’ll get to Chihuly outside the museum, but first, a brief stop as we go outside for an unusual piece: Martin Blank’s Fluent Steps, in the pools at the Museum’s entrance plaza. There are 754 individual hand-sculpted pieces in the work. Most were created during his 45 days in the hot shop in 2008. The project required inventing some new tools and techniques; ultimately 41 artists, architects and engineers had a hand in it.
Chihuly also helped design the bridge that connects the Museum, in an industrial area, to downtown Tacoma, crossing what were rail lines and is now mostly highway. The bridge includes two glass-box walls filled with individual pieces, two towering glass trees and a final square arch that incorporates one of Chihuly’s ‘Persian ceilings.’
Visiting the Museum of Glass is easily half a day. There’s a garage attached, and once you hit the reasonable two-hour price, you’re good for the day…an opportunity to stroll across the bridge to the Washington State Historical Society’s moderately interesting museum and Tacoma’s gorgeous Union Station, now beautifully renovated and serving the Federal District Court.
