THE GLASS PIRATE

We had lunch with Dale Chihuly several years ago in a small crowded Seattle restaurant while on a visit to see his show at the Seattle Museum. Of course he was hunched over his plate at an adjoining table and paid little or no attention to us, but nevertheless, we had lunch with him. He may look like a pirate with his patch over his eye and wild shock of hair, but he has been tapped with the wand of genius when it comes to making glass.

Beginning with the Egyptians and the Greeks who discovered that sand and quartz could be melted into glass it took the Romans to improve upon it by adding a fertilizer called natron as a flux so they could melt the stuff at a much lower temperature. They could make a lot of it in bulk and then ship it all over the Roman Empire to local craftsmen who turned it into cheap functional items.

The Roman love of glass led to the invention of transparent glass windows. Before the Romans, windows were open to the wind, and anything else which might fly in. The windows were small and fused together with lead, because they didn’t have the technology to make large panes of glass, but they started our obsession with architectural uses for glass.

Until the development of transparent glass, mirrors were simply metal surfaces polished to a high shine. The Romans realized that the addition of a layer of transparent glass would protect this metal from scratches and corrosion, and allow them to reduce the thickness of the metal.

Scroll ahead a couple millennia, and glass sculptor Dale Chihuly comes along to enchant us with his brilliant and mysterious glass sculptures and installations. He is unique to the field and seems to be able to breathe life into blown glass.

I became aware of Chihuly while living in Seattle when he formed his Pilchuck Glass School. The 1970’s were a particularly vibrant time in the art world, both in Seattle, Portland and the Bay Area. It was exciting to be a miniscule part of it, if only on the fringe. Our friend Marvin Oliver, son of good friends, got his masters in Fine Arts at the University of Washington, and subsequently became a professor of Art there. Marvin was my conduit to what was “happening” in Seattle at that time, and he knew that Dale Chihuly was doing some extraordinary work in a boathouse on Lake Union.

The glass bug had bitten numerous people, and small glass blowing studios popped up in various places all over town. One such was in the basement of an old building in Pioneer Square just outside the restrooms. It always took awhile to get back upstairs when they were working, it was so fascinating to see the large blobs of molten glass slide up the blow pipe and turn into something wonderful. You always wanted to stay and finish the process. Now there is a large glass museum in Tacoma, featuring glass from artists all over the world. A very large studio is open and invites the public to simply sit and enjoy the magic.

The sheer scale of Chihuly pieces can leave you breathless in amazement, and the color may well remain reflected in your retina for days, but the memory of a visit to a Chihuly show will remain with you forever. The mass of color above is from his “Persian Series” and was installed in the ceiling of a doorway at the Seattle Museum. Throwing all manner of indiscretion aside, I lay on the floor beneath this legerdemain and became a devoted admirer of Dale Chihuly.

A CAR NAMED HERMAN

The first Karmann Ghia I ever saw was a classy little red job my aunt and uncle bought in Germany and had shipped to the States. I was smitten, and when a shiny yellow Karmann Ghia took up residence in my garage several years later, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I promptly named him Herman, and happily drove him for twenty years.

The Italians had given the car its cool sports car look; sort of a Porsche, but without the speed. It was made between 1955 and 1974, and a mechanical dimwit could maintain it. I delighted in putting him in the driveway while I polished him, changed the oil and cleaned the engine. That was the extent of my automotive knowledge, except I knew where the gas tank was. The company made only a few colors, and Herman was Manila Yellow. I remember the red, which first captured my heart, and a dark green, but I don’t recall the other colors.

It had only two seats in front, but a very small platform opened down in the back for groceries, dogs or whatever. The gears were four-on-the-floor and let’s admit that Herman wasn’t comfortable going over 80 MPH.

My husband was transferred to Seattle in June of 1969, and I drove Herman to Kirkland, where we would be living, with a cat and his litter box on the back seat, while Dr. Advice took two rather well-behaved dogs with him in his car; a Chihuahua and a pregnant Dachshund. Surely a sign of male superiority, as he probably had the easier job controlling the dogs.

Together Herman and I explored every part of Seattle and its environs during the five years we lived there, while our daughter attended the University of Washington and Dr. Advice explored Alaska and its environs.

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Both dogs who had made the journey with us died during the time we were there, and then we were acquired by Liza, a wonderful eight week old German Shepherd Dog. She seriously did choose us. As we were scrambling around in the breeder’s barn trying to get the attention of another puppy, the very large gruff German lady who owned the kennel growled “Vat are you doing?” I pointed out the pup that we wanted, and she practically yelled “But THAT’S the one that wants you”

We took her home to live with us, and named her Heidi. She whined pitifully all night long so we changed her name to Eliza Doolittle. She never left my side the rest of her life, riding proudly in the front seat of the yellow Karmann Ghia wherever I went.

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A few months after we arrived in Kirkland, it snowed. I had never driven in snow or ice, but I had a tennis lesson in an indoor court in Everett, a town about twenty miles north, so Herman and I braved the weather and set off. It’s amazing how nothing looks the same under a thick blanket of snow, but we finally made it to Everett and the tennis lesson.

Seattle does not get identifiable snow every year, but it does freeze regularly in winter. One such morning I was ready to leave the garage, only to find that the macadam driveway had frozen and risen an inch or two, preventing one of the garage doors to open.

It was a double garage with two separate doors both opening outward, and Herman was a very small car, so I jockeyed him back and forth a number of times thinking I would then simply drive out the operational door.

To my horror, Herman got stuck sideways and refused to move again. Dr. Advice was on a business trip and I knew no one. We lived in the country, with no neighbors, so I was literally “stuck”.

When our daughter came home that afternoon and saw our predicament, she called several football players she knew, who simply lifted Herman off the ground and set him right! And yes, I would have to say that was male superiority!

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We returned to the Bay Area in 1974, and Herman and I traveled our old routes once more, this time with a large German Shepherd Dog riding shotgun.

Two small grandson had joined our family, and a few years later, I was invited by one of them to come do a demo for his school class in Scotts Valley. We did small clay dragons which I took home to dry before firing them, but before that I stopped and had lunch with my daughter at Pasatiempo where they lived.

That afternoon, while driving on the freeway, I was stopped for speeding. Worried that the little sculptures would dry too fast, I told the officer, “If you’re going to give me a ticket, please hurry up and do it, because there are 29 dragons drying in the back seat as we speak.” After looking into the back seat, he gave me the ticket.

That evening my daughter called and asked how my afternoon had been. When I assured her that it was fine, she said “Mom! I saw you pulled over at the side of the road. How fast were you going anyway?” When she heard it was only 75 MPH, she laughed and repeated it to her husband, whom I heard in the background saying “Geesh, I didn’t know that thing would go that fast!”

Herman suffered the same fate as most of us—he just plain wore out. When he left our garage for good, our 10 year old grandson said “I always though I’d drive him to college.”

BUFFALO WINGS IN CRISIS!

original watercolor painting by kayti sweetland rasmussen

I was surprised to learn that buffalo do not really have wings! This is not a term that I grew up with. However, the annual frenzy of the Super Bowl is upon us, and it is a known fact that chicken (aka buffalo) wings are one of America’s favorite Super Bowl munchies.

This year, however, the ubiquitous treat is in jeopardy. There might not be enough wings to feed America’s insatiable hankering for Buffalo Wings. This Super Bowl, snackers will have 12.3 million fewer wings to chow down on than last year, according to the National Chicken Council. The culprit: Last summer’s drought drove feed prices up, so farmers couldn’t afford to raise as many birds.

This is at a time when wings are increasingly becoming to Super Bowl parties what eggs are to Easter and candy canes are to Christmas. Snacking is so important to Super Bowl activities, in fact, that many snack makers say the week leading up to the Super Bowl is when they post their biggest weekly sales bump of the year. Avocados are at a rock bottom price to encourage guacamole makers. The potato chip shelves are emptying fast. Cases of beer are sailing out the doors. Is sit any wonder then that America has an obesity problem?

All I can suggest then, is to make a mad dash for the nearest supermarket and load up before the Buffalo wings are history. For we fans in the Bay Area, our pom-poms are dusted off, and front row chairs reserved. Go Niners!!