Happy Fifth Anniversary Museum of Glass

A glass act — inventing an art museum for a medium that was not yet fully accepted as art. Five years after it opened, the visionary behind the Museum of Glass reconstructs the earliest steps on the path to an achievement of transparent civic importance.

Pane I: The Australian Connection

About a month after I retired as president of the University of Puget Sound in 1992, Dale Chihuly came to see me. He was thinking about moving a portion of his operation, including a hot shop, to Tacoma. We discussed various locations in the North End, the area in which he had lived as a child and where his mother still lived.
In the course of our conversation, I blurted out: “Dale, what we really should have in Tacoma is a museum devoted to your work.”

One of my daughters married an Australian so my wife and I spend a good deal of our time there visiting our grandchildren. On one of our trips, I happened to see a “coffee table” book on the work of the most outstanding artists working in glass in Australia. As I read their biographies, I noted that almost every one of them had either worked for Dale Chihuly or studied at the Pilchuck School, which he co-founded. This demonstrated dramatically for me the impact that he has had on the development of this art form around the world. It seemed to me that this incredible achievement should be recognized in a singular way in his hometown.

Shortly after my conversation with Dale, I called Erling Mork, the former city manager of Tacoma, told him my idea and asked: “How do you make something like this happen in Tacoma?” Erling listened to my story and said:  “Are you doing anything Wednesday afternoon? I would like you to come to a meeting of the Economic Development Council for Tacoma-Pierce County.”  I was puzzled and asked, “What is that?” He explained that it was the business and governmental leadership of the city and county, and they were interested in ways to stimulate economic development in the area.

I went to the meeting and outlined my idea. I expected that they would listen respectfully, then pat me on the head and send me on my way.
Instead, George Russell, who was chairing the meeting, said, “Would you like to stay for the next presentation?” This was given by an architect from New York who had been hired by the Council to develop a plan for the revitalization of the Thea Foss Waterway. At the conclusion of the presentation, George looked at me and said, “We would like your museum to be the anchor tenant for the redevelopment of the Thea Foss Waterway.”
An incredible coincidence!

Pane II: The Double Challenge

The Economic Development Council asked David Allen, their executive director, to work with me on the project. David is a remarkable person and he played a crucial role in the development of the museum. He is one of those people who are perpetually optimistic. He has enormous enthusiasm and is very articulate. With those qualities and with his instinctive sense of how to make things happen in Tacoma, David carried the project forward to success.

We quickly discovered that we were not simply constructing a building, we were doing two quite different things simultaneously: building a building and building an institution. That is a double challenge. If one is building a building at an institution that already exists, there is an experienced and knowledgeable staff at hand that knows how to construct and operate a new building. There is also a fundraising team to garner the needed money and a board of trustees to supervise the whole effort.

We had none of those. Some of us had been involved in building buildings but none of us had been involved in creating a new organization. Moreover, we were all essentially amateurs in the world of museums. I was a trustee of the Tacoma Art Museum so I had some limited knowledge of the art world. Dale had incredible contacts among artists working in glass and was a master in the technical details of glassmaking. But even his knowledge of the operations of museums was limited. As a result, we relied upon experts. Lord & Associates from Toronto, who serve as consultants to museums around the world, and Paul Perot, a key figure at the Smithsonian, provided the professional advice and guidance needed to move us along successfully.

There was one very important change in our plans as we moved from idea to action. At an early point, the city indicated that it planned to construct a pedestrian bridge linking the Thea Foss Waterway at the site of the projected museum to Pacific Avenue and the Union Station area. Dale Chihuly was asked to design the bridge. Dale loved the concept of a museum devoted to glass in Tacoma, but he was uncomfortable about its being limited exclusively to his work. He felt it should be devoted to all artists working in glass. So, with his delighted agreement, we decided, in collaboration with the city, to make the bridge a showcase for Dale’s art, leading as it would to the museum itself where the work of artists from around the world would be celebrated.

One idea remained constant, however, throughout the entire process. The focus of the museum would be a hot shop. The commitment of everyone never wavered on this point. Even Arthur Erickson, the architect, agreed, and he made it, magnificently, the dramatic centerpiece of his work in that beautiful cone! We all felt the museum must provide an opportunity for artists to demonstrate their individual techniques and for the visitors to see the actual process of creation. The hot shop remains my favorite spot in the museum.

Pane III:: Very Important People

There came a point, in 1995, when we had completed all of the planning. It was time to move. David and I went to see George and Jane Russell. We felt they were crucial to the project because of their initial interest and because of the leadership roles they played in the community. We asked them to serve as co-chairs for the board of trustees. They responded with an emphatic “Yes!” and we were on our way.     

Jane Russell was a very important person in the work that followed. Unfortunately, she died before the museum opened, but she had a keen interest in both its development and its future. She was usually a listener in our lively discussions and arguments; when we reached a critical point in tour deliberations, however, she would quietly intervene with a comment or an idea that got us back in focus and on track. George Russell, with a different style of leadership, was the dynamo who propelled us forward at an astonishing pace. He was also remarkably important in securing the funds for the project.

We were extraordinarily fortunate in the other initial members of the board. Kelso Gillenwater, the publisher of the Tacoma News Tribune, was an incredibly articulate man driven by a powerful vision for the future of the city. Bill Philip, an unusually successful banker in Tacoma, was a long-time leader in the city who knew exactly how to make things happen. Anne Gould Hauberg, who with John Hauberg and Dale had founded the Pilchuck School, knew the world of art and especially artists working in glass.

Non-trustees also played crucial roles in the project. In many communities government is a problem, creating a series of hurdles that must be overcome before action is possible. This was not the case in Tacoma. Ray Corpuz, then the city manager, and Craig Sively, of the Public Works Department, were extraordinarily helpful as we made our way through the maze of permits and the details of construction. They are truly the unsung heroes of the venture.

Arthur Erickson, an architect who gently articulates very strongly held convictions, came up with a series of remarkable concepts for us. I grew up in the Northwest and remember vividly the sawdust burners that dotted the Northwest landscape and especially the tide flats of Tacoma in the first half of the twentieth century. Arthur used that history to link the new museum to Tacoma’s past with the dramatic cone for the hot shop. With a single stroke he created an icon for the museum and for the city.
We had amazing good luck at another crucial moment when we hired Josi Callan as director of the museum-to-be. In Josi we found not only someone with extraordinary experience in running a museum, but also a director with flair, style, taste and personality. She not only oversaw the construction, built an organization and engaged a remarkably talented staff; she also organized the stunning initial exhibitions at the new facility. Finally, she orchestrated a launching of the museum that created worldwide publicity.

Pane IV: What I Have Learned

One of the most exciting things about the museum is the range of ages that you see among the visitors and the diversity of ethnic and racial backgrounds in the hot shop audience, playing at artist in the education studio and studying the exhibits.

I was struck by this one Saturday in the hot shop. There was the usual mix of ages in the audience. At one point, the emcee asked: “How many of you have been to this museum before?” All kinds of little hands went up; very few adult hands were in evidence. The children had obviously been to the museum on school tours, and now they were returning with their parents in tow. I think it is wonderful to have children leading their parents to a museum!

When I retired from UPS, I decided I was going to lead a different kind of life, move on to something totally different. I had no idea that it would take me into the world of art. I had always been interested in art, but I had no formal training in the field. I simply enjoyed art; it brought a richness into my life. The interest in glass as an art form I attribute to Dale Chihuly. I was intrigued by his work and amazed by the beauty he created.

I can go to the museum and sit in the hot shop day after day and never be bored. There is always something new, something different to observe and study. The museum has enriched my life enormously. Through it, I have encountered a constant flow of artists engaged in a seemingly never-ending variety of techniques for working in glass, and I have seen remarkable art that I never knew existed.

When I returned to Tacoma from the East Coast in 1973, I was shocked by the contrast between the collections of art available in Boston, New York and Washington, D.C., and those here in the Northwest. It seemed unfair. It affected seriously the educational opportunities for young people — my great concern in life. If a child is exposed only to reproductions of art, there is an impact but it is limited. To see, subsequently, the original work is a shock, a profound shock, because the impact is so much more powerful.

Fortunately, the contrast between East and West is diminishing with the major expansion of the Seattle Art Museum, the opening of the grand new facility of the Tacoma Art Museum which enables it to present remarkably different shows and the wonderfully enhanced exposure to the work of artists working in glass at the Museum of Glass. Now, our challenge is to continue boldly the growth and expansion of our museums which enrich us all and especially our children. 

Essay by Philip Phibbs, president emeritus of the University of Puget Sound

G-Span

How do you get to the Museum of Glass? Take the bridge, pilgrim! A Q&A with Dale Chihuly, its creator, on the fifth anniversary of the opening of the Bridge of Glass.

City Arts: While the Museum of Glass was in the planning stages, the City of Tacoma decided to build a pedestrian bridge so the city wouldn’t be cut off from the redeveloped waterfront. Is that where you came in?

Dale Chihuly: Yes, I said I’d be interested in designing it and the decision was made by the Museum of Glass leadership and the city: my work would be featured on the bridge.

What happened next?

Starting out, I had a lot of different ideas. I looked at footbridges around the world. I bought every book known to man on bridges and read every article. There was a lot of thinking: how can we useglass and yet not have it broken over time? I worked on various concepts and finally simplified it to three installations — the Seaform Pavilion, Crystal Towers and Venetian Wall. The pavilion ceiling and the Venetian vessels grew out of other work I’d done. But the huge crystals were something I did for the first time on the bridge. I wanted some height. The crystals are hollow; we made molds and cast them in Polyvitro, a polyurethane material.

How did you know your concepts would work?

A full-scale model of the bridge installation was built in a large parking lot next to my studio in an industrial neighborhood in Ballard. Damned if one neighbor complained because she didn’t like how it looked.

Building a bridge is a big undertaking. Did it seem at all daunting to you?

We do a lot of big projects. Right now we’re doing one in Dubai, one in Abu Dhabi and another one in Macao. And I’ve done big exhibitions — temporary ones — in Venice and Jerusalem. They’re all big projects. But the bridge remains my largest project because of the complexities of making it permanent. A lot of people spent a lot of time figuring that out. I’d never really worked outside where we had to light something up for nighttime use, too. A lot of different factors go into the lighting, like, do you make the inside of the box holding the Venetians white?Or do you make it a mirrored interior? Do you have the light shine directly on the glass or do you bounce it off the ceiling? It all makes a difference.

The bridge attracts visitors from all over. Are you happy with it?

I think it turned out pretty well. I have several projects in Tacoma and I hope to have more. Now the biggest problem is keeping the crystal towers clean. And making sure the bridge stays lit. Unfortunately, those damn lights don’t stay on forever. ‹

All photos courtesy Museum of Glass unless otherwise noted.