Hi, my name is Lucas Lowry.
And I'm Shane Nutt.
And we have worked with Dilchi Houli in the Hilltop Artisan Residence.
Dilchi Houli is one of the world's top glass artists.
And you can see much of his work in museums, galleries, and in TV shows all over the world.
He has done many pieces in different countries.
Sharing his glass knowledge with other artists and having drawing workshops with children.
And we'll be back in one minute to show you just what we're talking about.
This is Hilltop Artisan Residence.
Hilltop Artisan Residence is a program started by Kathy Kuparek.
And she worked with Dilchi Houli as he was her mentor and supporter.
And they put this program together to work with kids to get them back into the system,
kids who had been for one reason or another.
Outside of regular mainstream in the community and either no longer were in school or were
at risk of dropping out of school.
And they used glass art to bring them back in.
It was the hook, if you will.
Now they are enrolled back in a regular junior high or high school or they are working here
with our alternative education teacher to get their GED or high school diploma.
I don't know how I got good.
It just happened.
Basically it makes me feel like I ain't got no cares in the world and I got all the homies,
friends up here.
So instead of going out in the street and doing that bad stuff, you know, I just come
here.
The heat and the different safety
you can get.
You got time to sit there and think about what you're going to make.
If you're making a big piece, that's why I like doing a big piece is more than I like
doing a little basis.
I have time to think about what we're going to make while we're there at the bench.
Then comes out something proper.
It's a craft that people love to do, you know, it's, it really gets under your skin.
You know, it's this ancient craft that somebody invented 2000 years ago.
Can you imagine blowing human breath down a blowpipe and getting a bubble and then you
heat it up in fire and you use just a couple of little tools and then you make these forms
that you can't touch.
All you have to do is blow glass once and you want to become a glass blower and you
almost can sense that from watching it, right, that it's so magical.
When Dale comes in, it gets louder, I think.
I mean, everybody screams Dale, they jump on him, you know.
There's Dale, there's Dale, there's Dale.
You know, it's such a good experience, you know, because younger kids, you know, they've
never seen no one who's, you know, famous.
He's on our level.
He's an artist, just like the rest of us.
He's fun to work with.
He's got everybody running around doing one thing.
Everybody else, you know, it's good.
It's fun.
You know, it's just a great program that's helping a lot of people, that is going to
give an opportunity for many young people to make something better of their life, you
know, or make something, or make our life better because they're doing it.
Whatever, it has to be a win-win situation.
Dale uses paintings and drawings to think of new ideas for new sculptures and new pieces.
And it's fun.
No, it's fun.
All right, so what we're going to do is Pat's going to show you how to make a knuckle.
So here's the blowpipe up here, and then you're going to gather on it, you're going to cut
it in, you're going to make a knuckle like this.
And then there's the piece down here.
So then we're going to break it off, so you're going to make it, you're going to make this
little knuckle right here because when we get done, there's going to be a wire that
goes around it right there, like that.
And that's what ties on, and we're going to break it off right there.
Okay, so I'm going to bring this over to you and hang it down a little bit.
And before you start to cut it in, let's look where you're going to put your neckline in.
See where those two bubbles are down there, kind of in a line?
Start to cut your neck in there.
Don't do it all at once.
Just be real gentle.
Excellent.
Now start to cut it in.
Don't angle your jacks out, but push them away from the bench to stretch out this glass
here.
Just move your jacks out that way.
Good job.
Stop.
Once we get that knuckle on there and you get a form made, then there's a lot of possibilities.
You can go on it, you know, anytime, anywhere you want to.
You can go out and make another loop.
Yeah, you can dig on the corners.
Pull some out.
Go in a little deeper.
That's it.
Go into the hot stuff.
Now you're talking.
I can dip it.
No, actually.
Oh, I get you.
I'm going to go in and I'll take this.
I think I'll probably be in jail, probably doing a lifetime sentence, I don't know, because
I used to do bad things and stupid things.
I was slipping up, got into trouble, dropped out of school, and I probably would have ended
up in jail because I wasn't exactly going the right way.
Never got into anything too bad, but that was because of the program.
I was on that trail and I was definitely going downward.
And I got myself out of that, you know, by motivating myself, you know, to just do something
better with my life.
So I just came up to Hilltop, you know, and they just took me in with open arms.
I like it here.
It's good.
It's a nice other family to have.
Let him guide you, let him guide you with your drop, let Ryan guide you with your drop.
Guide me, brother.
Go for the top line.
Go for the bottom one again.
Go for the top one again.
Dale traveled to Nuzziari Fillin with his team of glassblowers.
We're at the Hockman Blast Factory.
They made some of the most amazing experimental glass sculptures for Dale's Chihuly over Venice
International Art Project.
Dale invited the art students to come blow with some of the master glassblowers at the
factory.
We're going to do a couple of minutes to shoot it and we're taking it down.
The guy that I think that might have the hardest time fitting into the village is this guy,
Fisher, from Florida, all right, and what does he do?
He mobilizes the force five, the teenagers, who are the most interested of all.
These kids are the Fisher force five and one of the first things that we realized when
we got here was that there was so much going on and even with all the people that got here,
we needed more.
These kids were just hanging out, but they were checking out the action and I knew if
they got involved that they would really get into it.
Force five plus one coming in.
These guys can mobilize.
The whole project began to revolve around the river and unfortunately those kids could
work the river.
We had to be able to get out there, move the glass around, relocate it, get it in the right
spot.
The force comes to the rescue again.
The work is never done.
In that Fisher force five, those young teenagers from the village played a very important part
in that because you know what?
They had the energy that I liked.
I could work with them.
They were terrific.
Yes.
To thank the Fisher force five for all their help on the installation, Dale held a special
drawing workshop just for them.
Okay, give me greens, give me browns, give me greens, give me browns.
There's some chihulys on here.
There's white to your right.
There's the force in the force.
The force is in the force.
Okay, give me another color.
Okay, I'm going to grade the force now.
This is their diplomas.
A plus, A plus, A plus, A plus, A plus.
Now we're going to circle the most important part.
The force is the force itself.
It's always the people that are the most important.
There it is and I'm out of goods.
They watch me like I'm here and I draw and then they put their paper out here around the
floor and they get their paints.
And they watch me do it for a while and then they draw and it's a lot of fun for the kids.
Dale ran a drawing workshop for the kids in New T. Irving.
Dale loves to work with kids all over the world.
One, two, three, four, five.
Now we call this New T.R.V. Kids.
My painting workshops, they're not really demonstrations.
I'm actually going there with every intention to work in the way that I would normally work
and to get in a state of mind of being creative because I've always felt that you really can't
teach art, that the only way you can learn about art is to be around an artist.
It's getting good.
The kids need more paint.
Okay everybody, stop.
Stop.
In Kansas City, the Chihuly over Venice exhibition opened at the Kemper Museum.
Let's take a look.
How many do you like to draw?
Do you like color?
Do you like a lot of color or a little color?
Let's see what color you got here.
Dale invited kids from the Kansas City area to come and do a drawing workshop with him.
What other colors they got?
All right, see how I did that?
I just kind of squeezed it.
Not too hard.
I don't want to go like that.
What if I wanted to make a line?
Cool.
What if I wanted to make a letter?
Because everybody can draw equally.
You know, it's not about how nice you can make the bicycle look in the drawing or how
much you can do a portrait.
The drawing comes more from inside, all right?
If you go over to the museum and you'll see a lot of paintings in there where maybe the
artist couldn't draw, you know, what the mountain looks like or the house looks like so well.
But they could draw something that comes from inside of them.
It doesn't have to be realistic.
If you want to make it realistic, you can.
You know, if I wanted to make a figure, you know, I could probably even do it with this.
See, I could go, there's the arms and there's the legs.
There's another figure, there's the arms and there's the legs.
So I could make a figure or not make a figure.
It's beautiful.
Which one of you two is having more fun?
You are.
You ever painted like this before?
You think you want to do it again?
You think your daddy would let you?
Yes.
Maybe?
Maybe I'll send you, maybe I'll give you some of these leftover paints.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
How's that look, Randy?
Now I'm going to make a picture of you, Randy, right here.
There's Randy.
And here he is, painting, dripping the paint down on the drawing.
Now you make the drawing right there.
Not too many colors, Randy.
Give me some blue.
All right, let's try this blue.
Give me a little of this blue.
That's beautiful.
All right, Randy.
Don't do too much more of that.
Stop.
Do a few more drops.
I want the fronts of the toes to line up, both feet.
We're going to have you do it, then he's going to pick yours up, too.
All right, so as soon as he gets done, now you go in, let her go in and get some, too.
You put it in a different color.
All right, let's cut it.
It started off as a solid glass that was picked up onto a bubble.
Stay there, that's it, that's it, good.
Keep going, keep going.
We're going to cut hers off, and then we're going to pick this one up on that one.
Like most of them we only did like one pickup off the color table, but this one we did two.
You can kind of see like part of it, part of it's all this yellow and orange and everything,
and then there's purple here on the outside.
Tony Ahola had cut it right around here and everything.
You can see the cut marks.
It was blown into a little bit up here to get this bub out more,
and then it was heated up again and swung out.
Heat it up one more time and then swing a little bit.
It's a win-win situation because I get the energy from them and the ideas from them,
and they get energy and ideas from me, and they find and see a new way of working.
I like to think that these workshops can make a difference,
that out there there may be an artist that might go on from this.
Maybe what takes them on to find a passion and a vision for what they want to do in the future.
Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey.
Hey, hey, hey, hey.
Okay.
Thank you.