BY MARTHA STEGER

FOR THE FREE LANCE-STAR

Renowned glass artist Dale Chihuly brings unique fall color to Virginia. His signature installation, "Blue Ridge Chandelier"--intricately constructed from 1,151 hand-blown glass elements and lit at night, sends sparkling hues of gold, white, blue and gray from its elevated position at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts facing Richmond's busy Boulevard.

The shimmering, colorful light beckons visitors inside the museum's 12,000 square feet devoted to the full sweep of Chihuly's nearly five-decade career. From the atrium and the reflecting pool in the sculpture garden to the exhibition space on the lower level, fanciful installations immerse visitors in a world of colorful glass.

Chihuly's work is so massively intricate that viewers easily imagine the laborious, painstaking work involved, but the glass master also talks about something else--speed.

"When you've got hot glass--an organic medium-- and gravity is pulling on it, you've got to be fast," he says. "I had to learn to manipulate the medium quickly, working against gravity but also learning to work with it."

The sheer scale of his free-form style has made him notable--along with his range of colors from astonishingly brilliant to subtle, as well as the emotional impact his creations have on even casual viewers. "Chihuly at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts" includes "Tabac Baskets" illustrating his ties to the Pacific Northwest, where he was born and works today; "The Venetians" reflecting his early days at the Venini glass factory near Venice; "Mille Fiori," literally "a million flowers," highlighting Chihuly's engagement with nature; and "Macchia," drawing from the Renaissance tradition of applying color and celebrating the spontaneous and improvisational aspects of glass-creation.

Louis Comfort Tiffany's windows helped inspire Chihuly's work, and the "Blue Ridge Chandelier" at the VMFA appears to be in dialogue with Tiffany's "Christ Resurrection Window," created more than a hundred years ago but hanging adjacent to it. When the magnificent window was recently installed in the museum's new McGlothlin Wing, it was the first time in more than 50 years that it had been on public view.