I’d seen a chandelier in a restaurant in Barcelona when I was traveling. The chandelier was hanging at eye level. It was really beautiful. When you sat down to eat you looked underneath it, and it acted as a centerpiece for the table. I loved this idea of hanging a chandelier at eye level. And it triggered something that said, I now can make a chandelier, because it doesn’t have to be functional.
—Chihuly

I made the first Chandelier in 1992 for the Seattle Art Museum . It was a big show, the entire second floor, and there was an area that wasn’t working. At the last minute I had the glassblowers start making a very simple shape—one of the easiest forms one can blow. It is also strong and simple, and I knew it would hang well. I put ten or fifteen blowers on the project, and we made it in a few days and then hung it immediately in the museum without first making a mock-up. It was a little risky, but I was very confident. I put a large black granite table, eight by eight feet, under the piece to keep viewers back and to have a reflection.
—Chihuly

What makes the Chandeliers work for me is the massing of color. If you take hundreds or thousands of blown pieces of one color, put them together, and then shoot light through them, now that’s going to be something to look at! When you hang it in space, it becomes mysterious, defying gravity, becoming something you have never seen before.
—Chihuly