Weaving with glass...

LuLu, I was waiting to check out Glorious Knits at my local library, and my eye fell on a book with a most unusual title. Now, the name Dale Chihuly is nearly a household word in my part of the country, the artist who founded the Pilchuck Glass School and whose wonderful glass creations grace hundreds of public spaces around the world. Here's the title page:


Pendletons? What do Pendleton blankets have to do with Dale Chihuly? I learned that his first experience with glass was while taking a weaving course at the University of Washington. He cut and distorted rectangles of glass to insert into this hanging (which still hangs in his mother's home).
His experience with weaving and fibers led him to native American blankets. Since he couldn't afford Navajos, he began to collect Pendleton blankets. These were commercially woven blankets of many beautiful and varied designs, made by Pendleton Woolen Mills, originally for the Cayuse and Umatilla tribes.





The blankets inspired some of his early experimentation and glass design. Those are little threads of glass:
Here's one last photo from the book. I think that's Celilo Falls in the background, a stunning set of cascades and waterfalls on the Columbia River and favorite tribal gathering and fishing place until, sadly, it was submerged by the construction of a dam in 1957. According to Wikipedia, Celilo had been settled for more than 15,000 years -- the oldest continuously inhabited community on the North American continent.