Chihuly's Pendletons Book

Twenty-six years ago, Dale Chihuly attended an exhibition of Navajo blankets and was completely captivated. The brilliant colors, bold geometric designs, and intricate weaving of the textiles appealed to his interest in the interplay of strong color and shape. Chihuly later studied the designs, patterns, colors, and origins of trade blankets, recognizing their significance in history and the differences between their machine-made origin and those of the hand-made blankets. Soon after, Chihuly began to create a series of glass cylinders that explore the blankets' beauty--a pursuit he continued to perfect for twenty years--while acquiring more than six hundred trade blankets in his private collection.

This artistic enterprise has culminated in this outstanding volume, its images honoring the history of an extraordinary culture and presenting the artist's accomplished interpretations of it. Chihuly's Pendletons features historical photographs, selections from Chihuly's own trade blanket collection, and the distinguished Blanket Cylinders series.

The Blanket Cylinders are created through an innovative "pick-up" technique: thin threads or shards of colored glass are fused to make a drawing of a blanket design, then picked up on the surface of the hot cylinders. Art critic Michael W. Monroe explains, "The beauty of the Cylinder series arises from two sources: skillful manipulation of the properties unique to glass--clarity of texture and brilliance of color--and the painterly qualities of the molten forming process." Each cylinder captures a blanket's texture, pattern, and color, evoking images of the fabric stretched across a loom or in swirls of radiant colors as it moves with a human body.

The book's foreword, written by historian Charles J. Lohrmann, renders a compelling account of the economic and human history of the blankets. Chihuly's Pendletons provides a rare opportunity to view both the artist's exquisite creations and the inspiration behind them.