"The Aquarium on California's Monterey Bay is a major attraction for both tourists and locals. Every weekend you can expect to find large processions of eager sightseers pushing through the aquarium's dim blue passages. Of the many wonders the Aquarium offers, few are more popular, and more strange, than the jellyfish of the Outer Bay. In fact, the Pacific Coast sea nettles, the largest jellies on display, collect such large crowds that it causes a foot-traffic problem. At any one time, half a dozen people have their digital cameras or cell phone cameras fixed on the display and are clicking away. It's hard not to get a good shot. The jellyfish drift in a field of blue, looking something like Victorian-belled skirts as they bob their long, lacy flounces up and down the tank. Lit from beneath by a hidden lamp, they saturate with eerie bronze light. They're almost unfathomable-they're not exactly plants and not exactly animals. They look as though they might have evolved on some strange and different planet. And as you continue, the press of the crowd urging you along, life on earth seems more alien and possibly more magical than you've previously imagined.

Almost twenty years ago, glass artist Richard Satava stood in front of this very display and was struck with an idea. "Wow!" he recalls. "What a gorgeous creature! I knew right then I could put that in glass, because it was translucent. It had all the properties of glass. It was a perfect fit."