Born in Tacoma, Washington, in 1941, Chihuly became known for moving art glass beyond the pedestal, creating large-scale installations experienced as environmental or architectural. His team-based methods of production and installation further challenged the preciousness and singularity traditionally associated with glass art, emphasizing playfulness, scale, and sensory experience. 

This emphasis on experience is central to Lapis Blue Chandelier. Initially configured in 2004 in a more vertical arrangement resembling an icicle, its present configuration was conceived in 2014. Its capacity for transformation reflects Chihuly’s openness to redesign and his rejection of the notion that a work must have a single, fixed form. 

The earlier works show that this approach was present throughout his career. Amber Vase was made in Canada during a demonstration at Sheridan College, using beer bottles as material. Blue Sky Basket Set, from a series Chihuly has described as his most innovative, draws inspiration from the soft forms of handwoven baskets created by Indigenous artists of the Northwest Coast. Together, these works demonstrate Chihuly’s sustained interest in transforming the familiar into something unexpected.  

Amber Vase was donated to the Canadian Clay & Glass Gallery by Robert and Chris Held in 1999. Robert Held, an esteemed glass artist who started out in ceramics, founded Canada’s first college-level hot studio program in Canada in 1969 at Sheridan College. Blue Sky Baskets was gifted to Gallery in 2012 by Winifred Shantz, who was a positive force in the founding of this Gallery.