The Chihuly Garden and Glass Exhibit in Seattle, Washington
Credit: © Christian Heinz, Shutterstock

The United Nations named 2022 the international year of glass. Glass is one of the most useful materials in the world. Few manufactured substances add as much to modern living as does glass. Yet few products are made of such inexpensive raw materials. Glass is made chiefly from silica sand (silica, also called silicon dioxide), soda ash (sodium carbonate), and limestone (calcium carbonate).

Glass has countless uses. Food is preserved in glass jars. People drink from glass containers called glasses. Windows in homes, schools, and office buildings are glass. Motor vehicles have glass windshields and windows. People with vision problems wear eyeglasses. Glass optical fibers carry data all over the world at the speed of light over the Internet, the worldwide network of computers.

Besides being useful, glass is also ornamental. Ever since people learned how to make glass, they have used it as an art material. Glass can take many different forms. It can be spun finer than a spider web. Or it can be molded into a disk for a telescope lens or mirror weighing many tons. Glass can be stronger than steel, or more fragile than paper. Most glass is transparent, but glass can also be colored to any desired shade.

Glassmaking is a popular form of the decorative arts. Dale Chihuly is one of the leading glass artists in the United States. Some of Chihuly’s glass sculptures are shown in the background.
Credit: AP/Wide World

American artist Dale Chihuly is credited with bringing blown glass art back into fashion. Chihuly was born on Sept. 20, 1941, in Tacoma, Washington. He began glass blowing in 1965. Chihuly experimented with colors, layers, and organic forms. He quickly became the biggest name in glass blowing, teaching new artists how to challenge the norm of glass art. Much of Chihuly’s art is on display in public exhibitions. Glass baskets, bowls, chandeliers, orbs, and vases dominate Chihuly’s pieces.

One of Chihuly’s first public exhibitions was Chihuly over Venice, a project involving the installation of 15 chandeliers across Venice, Italy. His most notable works include DNA Tower (2003) in Indianapolis, Indiana, Citron Icicle Tower ( 2012) in Seattle, Washington, several displays at the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina, and a colorful sculpture on the ceiling of the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.

March 8, 2018

In February, an exhibition called “Super/Natural: Textiles of the Andes” opened at the Art Institute of Chicago. The exhibition features numerous textiles (woven fabrics) and other items created by the ancient Andean cultures of South America. These textiles were traditionally worn as clothing, but they also were used for communication and artistic and religious expression among the diverse peoples of the desert coasts and mountain highlands of the Andean region.

The “Super/Natural” textile exhibition includes this otherworldly figure holding a wild Pampas cat. Credit: Mantle (detail) (100 BC/AD 200), Wool embroidered in stem stitches by Paracas Necropolis; Emily Crane Chadbourne Fund/The Art Institute of Chicago

Textile creation in the Andes dates at least to the ancient Chavín culture (900 B.C. to 200 B.C.) in what is now Peru. The Chavín developed a backstrap loom and many of the techniques that weavers in the Andes still use today. In a backstrap loom, a strap on one end of the loom wraps around the weaver’s back. The weaver attaches the other end to a solid object such as a tree and leans or sits back to pull a set of yarns called the warp taut. 

The above textile, a product of the Paraca culture (500 B.C. to A.D. 200) in Peru, is a detail from a mantle (cloak) included in the “Super/Natural” exhibition. The figure holds a Pampas cat, a powerful predator and protector of agricultural fields. The individual appears to channel otherworldly power, as colored streamers emerge from the mouth and down the back, suggesting that the figure embodies the supernatural forces believed to govern the natural world. This type of representation is common throughout the Andes. Among the Nazca, a culture that emerged after the Paracas, woven textiles and painted vessels depict similar imagery. Individuals dressed in ornate costumes and wearing whiskered masks suggest transformation and connection between the natural and supernatural worlds. Later, such Andean cultures as the Wari, Chimú, and Inca also created intricate textiles for a variety of uses.

The “Super/Natural” exhibition features over 60 ancient textiles along with a number of Andean ceramics from the Art Institute’s collection. The exhibition highlights the unique aspects of individual Andean cultures while also demonstrating the similarities among them. The artistic objects deal with everyday life, the natural world, the supernatural world, and the afterlife.