Dan Dailey is a Glass Act

Circus Vase titled “Aquamotion” in progress

As a child in Philadelphia, artist Dan Dailey was inspired by both his parents. “My father designed the first televisions for RCA, and my mother did watercolor fashion illustrations for department stores, so I began my interest in art early on,” says Dailey, who now lives and works in New Hampshire. “There was an element of creativity in my house, and I started drawing clubs with my friends. I went to Quaker schools where education was expansive and interrelated with art.”

After a vigorous course of study at the Philadelphia College of Art, which included majoring in ceramics and building the school’s glass studio, Dailey decamped for San Francisco. A brief dive into the social scene of Haight-Ashbury (“the hippie thing was not me,” he says) gave way to a career in carpentry. “While in college, I had my own carpentry business, so I started Ace Carpentry again in California until I realized that wasn’t what I really wanted to do.”

“Dan Dailey: Impressions of the Human Spirit,” on view at Currier Museum of Art, through February 2, 2025.

At that point, Dailey returned to the East Coast, ultimately becoming the first graduate of a new glass program at the Rhode Island School of Design. “When I first learned glass as an undergrad, there was no teacher, nobody giving demonstrations on how to make a perfect Italian goblet or something like that, so all of my influence came from library books and watching the material move as I manipulated it,” explains Dailey. “When I went to graduate school, I decided that glass was interesting enough to make it my main material, along with metal.”

A Fulbright grant took him to Venice, Italy, where he worked in a traditional glass factory, and after one year there as a guest artist, a telegram arrived from the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston. “They asked me to start a glass program, so I moved to Boston and remained teaching, in various capacities, for 39 years,” says Dailey. “I loved it and have a connection with many of my students to this day, but I also knew I wanted to create more of my own art.”

Dailey had his own studio at the home he shared with his wife, Linda McNeil, a talented jewelry artist he met when she was his student in his first year of teaching. “We would go skiing together with her family and work on art together, and eventually, we got married. We’ve been together since 1973.” As their family grew, he rented a larger industrial space in Amesbury, Mass., close to the New Hampshire border.

“Debut,” 28 x 18 x 8.5 inches each, 2017

“During that time, I did quite a lot of work and was regularly showing in Manhattan, as well as in Washington, D.C., Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles and other places,” says Dailey. One day, while getting his car serviced in New Hampshire, he saw a place for sale in Kensington and, within a day, bought it. “We love this area, and it is such an interesting location. It still has a small-town feel but is only 45 minutes from Logan Airport. You can be at the beach in 15 minutes or go skiing in two hours up in Franconia.”

For many years the artist has made commissioned artworks, from chandeliers and sconces to murals, doors, tables and railings. His commissioned artworks are thematic, referencing nature and abstractly illustrative while being functional. For a house in Connecticut, he made a stairway and balcony railing with a theme of foxes running in grass. The tall grass stalks gently bending in a breeze, are made of bronze and function as balusters. The foxes, cast in glass and bronze, trot gracefully up the stairway and around the rail. The woodwork, designed by Dailey and made by Richard Pascoe and John Andrade of Great Bay Woodworking, is fabricated from sycamore and cherry wood, and the handrail has ebonized cherry inlaid lines.

Pat Morrison, left, with artist Dan Dailey. Circus Vase titled “Aquamotion” in progress

Dailey says his work tends to be subjective and narrative. “If you divide my work between fine art and functional art, like my sconces or my chandeliers, there are usually figurative elements within,” he says. “If it’s not a human figure, it’s birds or other animals as the thematic element from the real world. Everything is about something.”

Throughout the decades of creating glass and metal pieces, Dailey has held to a consistent inspiration for his art. “Since the beginning, I’ve always, in my heart, wanted to include a touch of humor in my work,” says Dailey. “Commissions are wonderful, but when someone comes upon my work at a museum or exhibition and tells me it makes them feel good, that’s unrelated to selling my art. I always want my art to be uplifting.”

Artist Dan Dailey with his residential staircase commission “Foxes in Grass” created in 2011. Photo by Richard Kosenski