Kicked Out of the Pilchuck Glass School
Last week at our Small Craft Advisory craft show in Stanwoodopolis, I met the Director emeritus of the world famous Pilchuck Glass School who was instrumental in bringing Dale Chihuly’s vision of promoting all things glass. Pilchuck Glass School sits in the foothills just above town and started back in 1971 with a couple of instructors and 18 students who lived in tents and makeshift huts overlooking the Skagit delta and Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains. If you’re ever wondering why the area has a glass blower behind every fir tree, the folks who studied at the school fell in love with the place and stuck around the Pacific Northwest.
When the school was small, we locals were invited up once a year for a free tour of the facilities. Bring a picnic lunch, bottle of wine, watch the glass blowing, wander the grounds. They were a welcoming bunch back then. Course, like most successful enterprises, they changed, started charging $25 for a visit, copped an attitude of artistic superiority and pretty much ruined the sweet ambiance of the earlier years. Fame will do that in case you’ve lived on the South End too long.
I was up there with Smoker Bill, one of my cronies, in the early ‘90’s to visit his friend who was in charge of maintenance. Bill was probably the best and most creative woodworker I’d ever met. Might still be. He could do things with wood most folks couldn’t begin to imagine. His buddy Richard the maintenance man was no slouch either. We drove through all the signs prohibiting entrance to unauthorized personnel and met up with Richard who gave us a tour of the new and old facilities, then we found seats in the open air glass blowing arena to watch two women work the furnace in a choreographed dance of glass gathers on the end of a pipe back into the furnace, blow a bubble of molten silica, another pass in the blast furnace, add an outer layer of glass, etc., etc. These women were known for their giant fruits. Apples, pears, big lemons.
Gotta say, not my idea of great art. Not even good art. Big ass fruits, c’mon…. But part way through an apple the size of a small poodle, one of the artists spoke to an assistant, pointed in our direction and next thing you know we were unceremoniously being escorted out of the premises. Richard apologized but we said it was okay, rules are rules. Although, to be honest, when I hear someone say how bohemian the lifestyle is at the School, how free and untethered, just let their imaginations soar without earthbound restrictions, I mostly think of a long row of mutant apples and pears lined up, price tags affixed, ready for shipping to adoring buyers across the nation. So it really doesn’t bother me … and actually makes me say with some unwarranted pride , as I did with the former Director, yeah, I was kicked out of Pilchuck Glass School.
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Tags: Glass Pariah, Pilchuck School Dropout