This article in the Times about a lawsuit filed by glass artist Dale Chihuly against two other artists caught my eye. I’ve done a bit of glassblowing, though my lumpy, lopsided mugs and vases are nothing compared to the works that Chihuly puts out.
Or, I should say, “Chihuly, Inc.” Because Chihuly himself hasn’t done any glassblowing for 27 years, after an accident left him without range of motion in his shoulder. He presides over 90-some glassblowers who produce his works, which take their inspiration from the sea. And now he’s claiming that the two defendants, one of whom worked for him for many years, are violating his copyright on off-center, sea-life-inspired, brightly-colored works of art. But the real question is whether he can claim copyright on nature or on techniques that have been around for millennia:
Mr. Chihuly has sued two glass blowers, including a longtime collaborator, for copyright infringement, accusing them of imitating his signature lopsided creations, and other designs inspired by the sea.
“About 99 percent of the ocean would be wide open,” Mr. Chihuly said in an interview. “Look, all I’m trying to do is to prevent somebody from copying me directly.”
The glass blowers say that Mr. Chihuly is trying to control entire forms, shapes and colors and that his brand does not extend to ancient and evolving techniques derived from the natural world.
“Just because he was inspired by the sea does not mean that no one else can use the sea to make glass art,” said Bryan Rubino, the former acolyte named in the suit who worked for Mr. Chihuly as a contractor or employee for 14 years. “If anything, Mother Nature should be suing Dale Chihuly.”
A number of people are perplexed as to why Chihuly is bringing this suit at all, particularly since it has the potential to pull back the curtain on the way that commercial art is produced.
Andrew Page, editor of Glass: The Urban Glass Art Quarterly, which is published in New York, said that Mr. Chihuly deserved a high place in the pantheon of glass artists, but that the suit could hurt his reputation by igniting countercharges and opening a window into how a celebrity artist works on a mass scale.
“I think Dale Chihuly is a pure original,” Mr. Page said. “He has a tremendous sense of color and composition. And he has done a tremendous amount for the field. But this lawsuit may have been the worst thing he could have done.”
. . .
In court filings, lawyers for the glass artists wrote that Mr. Chihuly would “often ask Mr. Rubino to come up with something for Dale Chihuly to review and purchase for Chihuly Inc.”
“Chihuly is not the source of inspiration for a substantial number of glass artwork carrying the Chihuly mark,” they wrote.
In other words, the defendants are alleging in their counterclaims that Chihuly will often pass off another artist’s work as his own and that many of the mass-produced pieces sold under his name have little to do with him, but are just part of the empire. Kinda like the way Thomas Kinkade,* “Painter of Light” works.
It will be interesting to see what happens with this case, since the Ninth Circuit, which covers Washington state, has already ruled in a case involving glass artists that natural forms cannot be copyrighted and controlled. And Chihuly’s claiming that, even though certain techniques have been around for 5,000 years, he made them distinctive by going deliberately off-center. As Rubino points out, it’s not hard to go off center, given the way that glass behaves when it’s taken out of the oven. It’s like working with molasses on the end of a stick. 1000-degree molasses, but molasses nonetheless.
— ———–
* I have to pass this bit from the Thomas Kinkade Wikipedia entry because it’s just too good not to highlight:
In 2006 John Dandois, Media Arts Group executive, recounted a story that on one occasion (“about six years ago”) Kinkade became drunk at a “Siegfried and Roy” magic show in Las Vegas and began shouting “Codpiece! Codpiece!” at the performers. Eventually he was calmed by his mother.