Fireworks of Glass

Fireworks of Glass is the largest permanent sculpture of blown glass created by renowned artist Dale Chihuly. The 43-foot-tall tower, composed of more than 3,200 individually blown pieces of glass, rises above a “floating” glass ceiling (1,600 pieces). The sculpture is bathed in natural light during the day and spectacularly lit at night for evening events. Children and families are able to circle the tower via the museum’s ramps and explore the sculpture from all sides. Construction was completed in early 2006, but the work is never done—it still requires cleaning every six weeks!

 

Regan O’Riley, whose company cleans and inspects the sculpture, describes their work: “Well, the training that is involved that we do is, as you can see the ropes there, they are ropes that are used for climbing mountains. It is sometimes scary because it’s high. It’s 45 feet to the top. I’m never afraid that I will fall. We try to clean every [piece]. There are 3,200 pieces. I sometimes lose track of which one I cleaned. It’s almost impossible to get every piece of glass, but we try our best to get every piece that we can.”