Blanket+Cylinder+Series

Date: 1984
 * [[image:https://s3.amazonaws.com/saam.media/files/styles/x_large/s3/images/2002/2002.8.1_1a.jpg?itok=AAzhNKpF width="240" height="319" link="@https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/blanket-cylinder-series-71417"]] || Title: **Blanket Cylinder Series**

Artist: **Dale Chihuly**  Born: Tacoma, Washington 1941

Medium: blown glass Dimensions: 13 1/2 x 9 1/2 in. (34.3 x 24.1 cm) Smithsonian American Art Museum Gift of Eleanor T. and Samuel J. Rosenfeld.

Accession: 2002.8.1 || While teaching at the American Indian School in Santa Fe, Dale Chihuly hit upon the idea of using motifs from Indian trade blankets. He made drawings from glass threads, then picked them up with the molten gather of glass at the end of his blowpipe. In this series, Chihuly is primarily concerned with the surface of the glass, suspending patterns of colored threads within simple forms.
 * About the Artwork: **

“I used to think that it was the glass that was so mysterious, and then I discovered that it was the air that went into it that was so miraculous.” Dale Chihuly, The Brooklyn Museum
 * About the Artist: **

Dale Chihuly founded Pilchuck Glass School in 1971. A venue for both established artists and new students, Pilchuck is now the world’s primary education center for glass art. Chihuly studied interior design and became interested in glass while trying to incorporate glass fibers within wall hangings. He has worked with a team of glassblowers, or gaffers, since he lost the sight in one eye in a car accident in 1976. His energetic studio is charged with heat and noise. As his head gaffer explains: “We’re like an orchestra, Dale doesn’t play an instrument, but he’s the guy up front with the baton.”

**Resources: **
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Chihuly Blanket Cylinder Information

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14.3px;">About the Artist <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14.3px; line-height: 1.5;">Artist Website SAAM Collections Page
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14.3px;">Links: **