Message from the Director

Most of you know that Dale Chihuly is credited with developing glass as a significant artistic medium in the United States, being the co-founder of the Pilchuck Glass School, and considered to be the foremost artist working in glass worldwide.

Less well-known is his prominence as a collector. His home and studio complex on the north shore of Seattle's Lake Union is a treasure trove of exotic, odd and wondrous things. My favorite room has always been the so-called "Indian room," in which a rich array of trade blankets, vintage baskets, photographs and Chihuly's glass art compliment each other and inspire comparison. The Museum of Art is thrilled to be able to recreate that experience for you with the exhibition Wrapped in Tradition.

Chihuly's interest in American Indian blankets - both native-produced and commercially manufactured for trade - reflects his decades-long interest in Native American art, which he encountered as he grew up in the Pacific Northwest. Indeed, his first serious use of glass consisted of weaving small pieces of glass into tapestries in the early 1960s. After studying weaving and textiles, he fell in love with Navajo and Pendleton trade blankets. As a young student he began to collect Pendletons. This marked the beginning of his involvement with Native American design.

In the 1970s, Chihuly began to explore the vibrant culture of American Indians in a new medium. These pieces were created by fusing glass threads to a molten glass cylinder, mimicking threads of cloth in Native American blankets. The Navajo Blankets Series helped establish the young artist, and marked the beginning of a prolific international career.

Aside from the obvious opportunity to view a famous artist's personal collection and his own art, this exhibition is an example of the value of cross-cultural experiences. There is a proven maxim that innovations often occur when the practitioner is open to encounters with new and unexpected influences. Think of Van Gogh and Japanese prints, Picasso and African sculpture, or Lichtenstein and comics. Dale Chihuly has spent a lifetime surrounding himself with all kinds of materials and unlikely artifacts outside his specific field. For the artist, the result is not direct influences, but rather constant, changing sources of inspiration and a distinct reminder to think out of the box.

Sincerely,

Chris Bruce
Director, Museum of Art/WSU

What's going on?

The format for First Wednesday has a new twist. Enjoy time with friends among the Arts hosted by the Museum of Art, the Department of Fine Arts, and the School of Music. We invite you to see the art in all three galleries while listening to great music and strolling through the building. We had 83 people come through the Museum for our September First Wednesday. Mark your calendars and join us on October 8 for a special second Wednesday.

Next time you are at the movies watch for our new advertisements. We're on the big screen at the Village Center Cinemas.

The traveling exhibition, Sherry Markovitz: Shimmer, is on it's way to the Schneider Museum of Art in Ashland Oregon. So far this show, curated by the Museum of Art has been seen by 13,285 people. Shimmer will be on display at the Schneider Museum of Art from September 25 - December 13.

Are you interested in becoming a Docent? Contact the Museum of Art at 509-335-1910.

Museum Info

Gallery Hours
Monday-Saturday
10 a.m. - 4 p.m.
Thursday
10 a.m. - 7 p.m.
Closed Sunday

Office Hours
Monday-Friday
8 a.m. - 5 p.m.

Location
Wilson Road across from Martin Stadium in the Fine Arts Center

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Phone: (509) 335-1910
Fax: (509) 335-1908

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Wrapped in Tradition: The Chihuly Collection of Native American Trade Blankets

October 3 - December 19

American Indian Trade Blankets from the Chihuly's Collection, Photo: Scott M. Leen

Wrapped in Tradition includes eighty vintage Native American trade blankets from the personal collection of the master of glass, Dale Chihuly. Also on view will be numerous pieces of original art from Chihuly's Blanket Cylinder series, which vividly invokes the blankets' unique textures, patterns, and colors. The resulting display conveys a rich cross-cultural dialogue between an innovative contemporary artist, commercial craftsmanship, and Native American traditions.

Museum Events

Wrapped in Tradition:
The Chihuly Collection of Native American Trade Blankets
October 3 - December 19,
Museum of Art/WSU

Special Lecture
Barry Friedman
October 3, 7 p.m.
Fine Arts Auditorium

First Wednesday
October 8 (special second Wednesday) and November 5
4:30 - 5:30 p.m.
Fine Arts Building

Department of English Visiting Writer Lecture Series
October 16 and
November 6, 7 p.m.
Location to be announced

Richard C. Elliott: Central Core

Be sure to stop by the temporary art installation Central Core by Richard C. Elliott. The installation is located at Market Square on the corner of Grand Ave. and Main Street in Pullman.

Elliott is known throughout the Northwest for his large-scale installations created from thousands of industrial reflectors. His artistic style utilizes color, light and radiant geometric patterns. Elliott's medium, industrial grade reflectors, allows him to paint with light. Reflectors are made from the highest quality light translucent acrylic with a diamond pattern in the back that captures light and spins it back out toward its source. He combines this light active medium with two-dimensional geometric designs similar to patterns found from the Arctic Circle and Amazon jungle. These designs, echoing the patterns within us, have connected people to the living fabric of life since the dawn of time. They create a meditative and instinctive response of harmony.

Central Core is made of fifty-one 32"x32" reflective panels with each panel consisting of 1,000 bicycle reflectors. The panels are based on all variations of color combinations of a single pattern, which radiates three points from the center.

January 14 - April 4

In 2006 Chris Jordan began a series of digital photographs that present contemporary American culture via the nearly incomprehensible statistics regarding American excess. Each image portrays a specific quantity of a consumption or cultural value: Cans Seurat depicts 106,000 aluminum cans (the number used in the U.S. every thirty seconds); other images show 426,000 cell phones (the number retired every day); 2.3 million orange prison uniforms (the number of Americans incarcerated annually). Jordan portrays these statistics by incorporating them visually in large, intricately detailed photographic prints assembled from thousands of smaller images.

The exhibition will focus on this recent body of work, Running the Numbers (2006-present), and will also include examples of the previous series of "straight," documentary photographs, Intolerable Beauty (2003-05). The exhibition, organized by the Museum of Art/WSU, is the first comprehensive presentation of this internationally-known artist's work, and will travel nationally.