Chihuly victimized by his own success?

Dale Chihuly is the most inventive glass sculptor in the history of the medium, but a massive career and many honors have not insulated him from personal and professional troubles that trail him lately like a bad smell.

A few weeks ago, the bad smell metaphor took material form.

Standing in an ornate garden surrounding

You wouldn't know it to look at his work. Full of play and dazzling in its high theatrics, his sculptures give voluptuous shape to excess, making it shine.

But at age 64, he's where he never wanted to be, in court. He's suing two glass blowers for copyright infringement, contending they're imitating his work. They're threatening to sue him back, questioning whether Chihuly is the creative intelligence behind the art bearing his signature. And a former dealer is attacking him with a gusto rare in the art world. If that's not enough, his feet hurt.

Emotionally, he has been through the wringer.

Since 2001, a significant number of the people closest to him have died, some without warning. Partially because both his brother and father died in quick succession in his teens, he tends to experience each death as a blow to the body.

Last year he sank into a depression from which he is now recovering. Friends who haven't seen him in many months are being invited over for dinner. Another sign of his recovery: He married Leslie Jackson, his long-term girlfriend (and mother of his 8-year-old son) late last year. In the wedding photo, he's trying on a smile like a cautious man venturing into new land.

Interviewed several times in recent weeks, Chihuly appears to be a fragile version of his old self, but he becomes animated when talking about his work, his young son, the fine BLTs at a nearby diner and the movies. Chihuly loves the movies.

A mark of his distraction is how few he has seen lately.

He used to pop up everywhere in his pastel shirts, paint-splattered shoes and rakish eye patch. Although he travels less now, wherever he goes he's there already, with installations in seemingly numberless art museums and with glass vegetation giving God's handiwork a run for its money in garden conservatories, parks, public pools and aquariums.

That's not counting the tens of thousands of Chihulys resting on tabletops, floating in pools and hanging in brazenly spectacular chandelier form from the ceilings of private homes. Add his splatter paintings and thousands of lithographs, hundreds of picture books, DVDs, posters and notecards churned out by his Seattle publishing arm known as Portland Press, and the man's an industry.

Glass artist Benjamin Moore called Chihuly the most generous person he has ever known: "He's generous with everything, his friendship, his time, his loyalty, everything. But is he difficult? That's putting it mildly."

Bipolar disorder

Starting in his 40s, Chihuly has suffered from bipolar disorder. One glass blower said working for him was like reading tea leaves. "You have to allow for the emotional thing and work around it," he said.

Chihuly said he understands the problem more than he used to. "I thought I couldn't work well when I was down, but then I noticed the work could still be good," he said. "The reverse is true, too."

That means because quality of the art doesn't necessarily relate to the mood swings, he decided to balance them out medically and save his own life.

Glass artist William Morris said it's nice to see Chihuly return to the land of the living. "I was pretty worried about him for a while," he said.

Moore called Chihuly's disease "terrifying and heartbreaking, especially last year, when we didn't know if he'd make it."

Even in Chihuly's bleakest moments, however, the one constant is work.

"Nobody works harder than Dale," said Moore. "I think about the artists I know. They have lives. Dale is Dale all the time, constantly spiraling into his work, 365 days a year. He never makes time for anything but his mania for glass and mania for promoting himself."

Chihuly doesn't agree, quite, but he'll acknowledge that his work is rarely out of his mind. He does laps in his pool, and he's thinking about lighting and installation problems. He's watching his son play, and the shape of the child's arm thrown out reminds his father of the silky reach of glass reeds rising in green ponds.

Each month, his crews turn out Chihulys by the ton. He declined to say how much it costs him to keep his business afloat, but friends speculate it's somewhere between $250,000 and $500,000 each month. That's before he sees a profit and not counting the cost of special projects, which can run to the millions.

Asked if he thought his work ran him, rather than the other way around, he paused.

"There's probably truth in that," he said. "But there's also the thrill of figuring out a new piece or installation and coming up with new ideas. The vocabulary is there, but what I do with it continues to change."

'His own invention'

It takes a village to produce Chihulys, but what happens to the industry of that village when Chihuly's energy fails him? If the sorcerer's gone and the sorcerer's apprentices continue to punch the clock, whose work is it?

"If you're asking if Dale Chihuly is the artist of his own work, the answer is yes, absolutely," said Elizabeth Brown, chief curator at the University of Washington's Henry Art Gallery. "It doesn't matter who fabricates it. He has a complete formal vocabulary that is his own invention."

This issue is of more than aesthetic interest. On the issue of copyright infringement, he's suing several glass blowers who are threatening to sue him back, arguing he can't copyright organic-looking glass.

These suits are not the only issue keeping Chihuly's legal team busy. An art dealer Chihuly fired won't go away. Even after an arbitration that Chihuly won on nearly all counts, the dealer, Doyle LaCount, claimed victory on his Web site, chihulyscrewedme.com, and boasted he's the reason the sun is setting on the Chihuly empire.

The glass blowers heading to court against Chihuly's legal team and the disgruntled former dealer all question whether Chihuly is entitled to claim his work as his own.

What is obvious inside the art world (it's his) may not be so obvious in court. That's why, when asked about it, curators and artists who have worked with him tend to sound as if they're speaking through megaphones.

Brown said once Chihuly approves a series of sculptures, drawings and prints, other people can create them for him. She's "amazed" that anyone could question his authorship after looking at his work.

"It's his without any ifs, ands or buts," said Moore. "I know. I worked for him and know people who still do. No matter what, Dale is always in charge."

Morris met Chihuly at Pilchuck Glass School when Chihuly was already a big deal and Morris was earning money for tuition by driving the Pilchuck truck. He remembers his reaction when he heard the older artist didn't make his own sculptures.

"I was appalled," he said. "I asked myself, 'What kind of f - - king phony is this?' But when I saw him on the floor, I realized how in charge he was. And when I started to blow for him, it was clear I was working on his work. You work for Dale, you tune in to his aesthetic. Everything about Dale is in his art. He's a great self-promoter, and that promotion is his art, too."

Glass sculptor Rich Royal said that Chihuly has figured out a system to allow other people to help create his visions. "Even when he was sick, he knew exactly what was happening with his work."

Throughout art history, artists have used assistants, sometimes liberally, but in the 20th century artists directly challenged the idea that art is more valuable as a hands-on operation.

From Marcel Duchamp to Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons, Lawrence Weiner and Robert Gober, artists say that hands-on production is a choice, not an imperative.

'I liked the view'

Chihuly started out blowing his own glass and might still be if it weren't for a 1976 car accident that left him blind in one eye and lacking depth perception. Another accident that dislocated his shoulder meant he couldn't hold the glass blowing pipe.

"Once I stepped back, I liked the view," he said, seeing the work from more angles and able to anticipate problems faster.

Chihuly patiently explains that he's more choreographer than dancer, more supervisor than participant, more director than actor. And yet, people wonder if he's pulling a fast one.

It's the kind of dilemma Warhol appreciated, just as he appreciated Chihuly. In 1978, Warhol called the young glass sculptor and asked if he wanted to trade artwork.

Chihuly said yes immediately, but on the appointed day he was too busy to go and sent assistant Kate Elliott in his stead, armed with a slumped glass basket in Bubble Wrap.

In return, Warhol gave her a painting of a dollar sign and asked if she wanted to go shopping.

To this day, Chihuly kicks himself for delegating the opportunity of a lifetime.

"Shopping with Andy, that would have been great," said Chihuly.

Like Warhol in many ways, Chihuly likes to own a wide range of the world's consumer goods, but unlike Warhol, he doesn't like to shop for them.

He collects the way he produces art, in volume, buying big collections from other people. He has a depth in Navajo blankets, bird houses, fishing lures, painted chalk figures from Paris, string holders, vintage children's books, toy airplanes, adult canoes, antique bathing suits and musical instruments, especially accordions.

Chihuly didn't start the studio glass movement. Harvey Littleton did in the 1960s in Madison, Wis. But Littleton's work never went anywhere, and Chihuly's made the studio glass movement catch fire.

Littleton proved that glass could be blown in comparatively intimate, non-factory settings. Chihuly proved that a liquid light medium could carry consequence in contemporary art.

Admirers, critics abound

Those who have never taken glass seriously don't admire Chihuly, but he has admirers in high places, including art critics such as Arthur Danto and Donald Kuspit, and artists such as Jeff Koons, David Hockney, Kiki Smith and John Torreano.

In 2001, a solo Chihuly exhibit at London's Victoria and Albert Museum threw English critics into superlative overdrive. "Sensational," said the London Telegraph. The Sunday Times was "blown away," the Evening Standard was "dazzled," and the London Economist found it "breathtaking."

His shows are big draws in the Northwest, but on the ground among the region's artists, bashing him is a popular sport.

What do they have against him? He turned Seattle into the Manhattan of glass art. There are now more glass blowers in Seattle than in Venice. Even though Chihuly doesn't know more than a fraction, he's the reason they're here. More than anyone else, he created the environment that makes their careers possible.

Without him, there would be no Pilchuck Glass School and no Museum of Glass. No artist since Robert Rauschenberg has done more to create art opportunities for others. He was the prime mover behind the scenes at the Hilltop Glass program in Tacoma, which gives at-risk youths a chance to put hot air to practical use, a program copied in Seattle at Pratt Fine Arts Center and elsewhere around the country. He created Seniors Making Art.

He supports more charities than Jimmy Carter. The list of institutions thanking him is nine pages long (single-spaced) and includes museums, art centers, hospitals, schools and health programs, nearly all in this region. Look in vain for this list on his Web site. It isn't there. The master of self-promotion doesn't promote his own good deeds.

In the end, glass is the issue. If you like it, Chihuly's the guy to thank. If you don't, he's the guy to blame.

A recent online interview between Stranger art critic Jen Graves and arts editor Christopher Frizzelle wallowed in the blame game. Frizzelle began by asking, "Dale Chihuly seems sort of creepy. Is he?"

Dodging it by saying she didn't know Chihuly, Graves invited those who share her negative view ("terrible") of his supposedly bulletproof Bridge of Glass in Tacoma to express their displeasure by shooting at it.

With a gun.

Victim of success?

Is Chihuly victimized by the enormous size of his success? Fame casts both spotlight and shadow, and people disappear into their reputations.

Two weeks ago on a blustery day, Chihuly was noticeably limping as he headed for his car. His feet hurt. They've been hurting for more than a decade. Doctors advised surgery, but Chihuly said he's happy he didn't do it, because he knows somebody who went ahead and is now worse.

When Chihuly wants advice, he polls his friends. For him, it's all about his circle. Its members may not have gone to medical school, but they have his back.

The smell of fertilizer Chihuly noticed on his trip to Medina will be gone by the time a private benefit for the Seattle Art Museum's Olympic Sculpture Park opens there in May.

Chihuly will turn the mansion's wide lawn into a stage for his hothouse of blooming glass flowers, reeds and maybe a floral glass tower or two.

He's not getting paid, but he's thinking big.

"Remember Jeff Koons' giant puppy made of flowers?" he asked. "I love that."

He studied the lawn and its slope to Lake Washington.

"I can work with the yard, but we need to extend into the water," he said to his studio manager, Billy O'Neill. "Be sure they know that, Billy. I want the sensation of moving out and floating away."

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