Chihuly Who?

I read a lot, and I am constantly learning new things through reading.  Every time I run across something I've never heard of before, I stop and look it up.  (Thank goodness for Google!)  This morning I was reading a novel and one of the characters happened upon a "Chihuly chandelier".  She said:  "hovering over me was the Chihuly chandelier... white and ruffly and full of dripping tentacles."  She describes it as "a hovering glass beast."

WHAT was she talking about?  I had never heard of a Chihuly chandelier but it certainly sounded remarkable.  So I looked it up on Google.  Could this be what she was talking about?

A "hovering glass beast"?  Yep, that must be the one.  Here is a full-length one:

My next thought was "who or what is Chihuly?"  So I looked that up, too.  Dale Chihuly is a glass artist.  He makes art glass for gardens, glass sculpture and glass chandeliers.

They come in all kinds of shapes and many gorgeous, crazy colors:

Some of them remind me of exotic, colorful sea creatures:

Why had I never heard of this?  I like modern style chandeliers, some of them retro, like the "Sputnik".

I remember one time we were talking about furnishing our new house. My niece asked me what kind of chandelier I wanted.  I didn't know how to describe it so I just twirled my hands around in circles.  I was thinking of something like this:

I like this one too:

I could never afford a Chihuly; they are extremely expensive.  But there are others that appeal to me that are more mainstream.

And maybe I could afford this necklace that I found in a catalog:

These designs all appeal to my imagination.  Whimsical, colorful, freewheeling... fun!