Crafts Business Magazine

Duane Dahl can turn glass into water. Both his tableware and large-scale installation pieces seen in restaurants, galleries, and museums resemble water flowing and moving. “Having a Duane Dahl piece is like having a gentle brook running through your home—without getting your carpet wet,” says Clive Oines, spokesperson for Goldsmith Gallery in Sitka, AK. The gallery is surrounded by ocean and rocky shoreline and Oines says Duane’s organic style and use of natural forms appeals to their customers. “The response has been phenomenal,” says Oines.

When Duane was a child, his favorite toys were an Erector Set, Tinkertoys, & Play-Doh. “Even more fun was creating from cardboard, paper, crayons and things found in the yard. I had a favorite aunt who worked in a paper factory and would surprise me with boxes of paper of all sizes, textures and colors. That was the best,” he recalls.

Growing up in the Northwest, or working as a window dresser, or building sets for the television show Battlestar Galactica all may have helped him create his signature style. Both of Duane’s parents were creative. When he was young, his mom channeled her creativity into cooking, making costumes, and decorating, and later in life became a painter. Duane’s father was a skilled carpenter who taught him construction skills. “He taught me how to take ideas and, with raw materials, make something tangible from them. I was in an environment of making things to entertain myself and got a lot of support from my parents.”

He studied graphic and advertising art at what is now the Seattle Art Institute. He said it was there that he was encouraged to try different two- and three-dimensional media. Although he sold some of his paintings in egg tempera, he was unsure he could make a living as a full-time artist at the time.

“Over the years I had a variety of jobs that circled around the world of art without really landing there. But all provided experiences that jelled in my present work.” For four years, he worked as a visual merchandiser (window dresser) for Bon Marche in Seattle. “I learned to design large-scale pieces for the windows that I would then build. These ranged from a window full of penguins in tuxes to 10-ft. origami cranes and shrimp.”

In 1978, Duane moved to Los Angeles and studied animation with Hanna Barbera studios, set design at Lorimar Studio, and set construction at Universal and Warner Brothers Studios. Duane worked 80-hour weeks building sets for television and movies, which helped him see how to create big projects from start to finish. “All these experiences added to my artistic bag of tricks, though none of the jobs was an exact fit for me.”