This past weekend I attended my 30th reunion at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in Providence.  Though I feel like it was just yesterday that I was working in the studios, hanging out in the Tap Room and going to exhibits, I had to face reality – 30 years is a VERY LONG TIME and I probably wasn’t going to see many familiar faces or names.  So it was particularly exciting to find a fantastic exhibit by world renowned glass artist, Dale Chihuly.  Dale had been the head of the glass department when I was a Textile Design student at RISD, and I had been fortunate enough to take a course with him.  He was a mentor to an entire generation of glass artists, and the exhibit included 8 or so talented artists who were former students.  It was a powerful visual display of the magnitude of Dale’s impact on the art world.  I have seen his work at the New York Botanical Gardens, and other installations, but this was the first time that I saw a lot of his sketches.  Dale had been a textile designer, which seems to have greatly influenced some of his work, and one of the special displays was a series of studies mounted as an entire wall of paintings.  Here are a couple of photos from the exhibit:

- Meg