Adrienne DiSalvo & Chadd Lacy

Chadd Lacy Glass Goods is actually two people: Chadd Lacy & Adrienne DiSalvo. They are an extremely down-to-earth power couple who put out quite possibly the most whimsical functional glass art imaginable. But it wasn’t always that way. For a large part of their artistic carriers neither had considered making functional art. They had been primarily anchored in the fine art world creating decorative objects and jewelry. Both grew up in the North East of the United States.

Chadd Lacy Whale Rigs For Sale

Glass Nation carries a wide selection of Chadd Lacy whale rigs in our online art gallery. Check out our full selection of Chadd Lacy’s Glass art here.

Professional Glass Artist Chadd Lacy

Chadd Lacy has been working with glass art since about 2001, but has only been making functional glass art since 2014. He started out working with soft glass, despite having experience with borosilicate glass, most of his work was in soft glass. In 2003 he participated in a Studies in Craft program at, Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow, Scotland. The next year he did a  BFA, at Tyler School of Art, Temple University, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania. Later in 2005 he went to Penland School of Crafts, in Penland, North Carolina. This professional academic background has given him exceptional skill on the torch.

Professional Mettle-Smith & Glass Artist Adrienne DiSalvo

Adrienne DiSalvo is a professionally trained academic artist though and though. She started out at the Pratt Art institute at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Fine Art Foundation. She went to the Cleveland Institute of Art her Bachelors of Fine Art Emphasis in Jewelry and Metals. She learned hot glass sculpting from Ross Richmond at Kent State University. She has over a decade of professional fine art experience and there is no end in sight to her creativity.

Whimsical Heady Whale Rigs

Chadd & Adrienne arrived at whales out of an interest in Moby Dick and the Victorian Whaler Era. Chadd said, “We got an interest in whales and started making more of them. Adrienne had me make this necklace for her that turned out to be a frumpy little sausage of a whale. At the same time, I was starting to work boro more and more and I think that we have a lot of a similar spirit that was in our art before, but now we get to apply it to the functional work, which is fun.” You can defiantly see the 1600s Victorian era themes in their art. Rugged looking whales, grimacing and holding harpoons.

Whaling in the 1600s 101

We did a bit of research on what exactly went on in the 1600s around whales. We found Dr. Sean Anderson Associate Professor in Environmental Science and Resource Management at California State University. He said in his lecture that whaling, “was primarily a muscled endeavor. Men with strong backs and strong arms threw things at these organisms. Harpoons, big giant spires with a barbed tips. Get them and essentially stab them or beat them to death if they were a seal or something like that. If it was a whale stab it and if it didn’t die right away let it bleed out, stab it a lot more and then bring it into the boat. That was to do it, but obviously only certain people who could do that. Mostly strong able-bodied men.”(Anderson, History of Whaling, 27:00). It is easy to see this rugged, harsh victorian history, mixed with whimsy to make lovable and memorable objects.