| Though they may have been short-lived, both
Mitla and the later Artpark project provided Chihuly an alternative
to the organic shapes of his blown glass and a means to explore
the minimalist sensibilities so dominant during this period. In
the winter of 1972–73, Chihuly traveled with Carpenter and
Barbara Vaessen to central Mexico to the archaeological site of
the stone necropolis at Mitla, near Oaxaca. He was fascinated by
the fusion of Mixtec and Toltec influences and the intricately patterned
walls of small stone slabs. These structures gave him the idea of
working with glass blocks, so he ordered one thousand ¾-inch plate
glass blocks from Tennessee for shipment to a glassworks outside
Philadelphia. The blocks came in five sizes, two hundred of each.
Chihuly arranged them with geometric precision into a number of
configurations. At Artpark in 1975, he again worked with plate glass,
but with random configurations of thinner sheets. He abandoned the
Philadelphia series because of problems with the adhesive.
Dale
Chihuly: Installations 1964–1992 by Patterson Sims
|
