I noticed a guy decorating the front of Chihuly Gallery inside Bellagio Hotel facing the grand lobby. I saw the tall blue crystals. I stopped and touched them to see if they were indeed breakable. Yes they are.
A woman came out of the store and said hi to me. I told her I was just curious. She spoke to me in Tagalog. She introduced herself as Shirley Ong.
She said the artist is Dale Chihuly, the one who also made Bellagio’s colorful glass sculptures called Fiori di Como located at the hotel’s registration lobby’s ceiling. I’ve always thought those were Murano pieces.
This masterpiece of Chihuly is said to be worth more than $3,000,000. It consists of more than 2,000 hand-blown glass flowers strewn together.
While I was at their gallery, a 32 year old dermatologist from Ohio called inquiring about the bowl. That big orange tangerine bowl is $38,000. He has bought two Chihuly masterpieces before and he is looking to acquire more.
Shirley has been working at the gallery for 15 years.
After spending an hour chatting with her, I learned that she’s from Iloilo. Her brother Peter Ong came from Santa Maria Catholic School. She was the classmate of my brother in law at San Agustin. She even showed me an old high school photo of their group with my brother in law sporting a long hair. Nung time na yun uso yung parang jeprox.
Sobrang liit ng mundo ano? What a small world indeed.
Her older brother, Peter, was a priest. He retired and moved to the US. He was living by himself in San Diego when he suffered a stroke five years ago. Shirley took him to Las Vegas and she’s been caring for him since. A few months ago, Peter suffered a second major stroke. His brain was continuously bleeding and that impaired his eye sights. His left eye is now completely blind while his right eye could only see partially and not clearly. He also has dementia and alzheimer’s disease. Sad naman.
Dale Chihuly is planning to close his gallery at the Bellagio this February because the artist no longer wants to be in a casino setting. Their clients can order online or call, and Chihuly’s art pieces are available in other art galleries.
Shirley wants to retire soon, bring her brother to Clark or Iloilo so he could have more people taking care of him. But she’s in a quandary because friends and relatives told her that medical expenses are more expensive in the Philippines.
Sometime in April 2016, while Shirley was manning the gallery, An African-American guy walked-in and stood by one of the tables. There were two other customers who were inside the store at that time, two female white Caucasians from Canada. Shirley walked closer to the guy, smiled and greeted him. That’s what they were trained to do when a customer walked in.
The black guy said to her “Somebody wants to shoot me. Before that happens, I will shoot you first”.
Shirley froze. The guy had a backpack and a plastic bag with him and who knew what was in there. Shirley collected herself and she walked casually to the reception desk where the alarm and phone were located. The two women sensed something was wrong. One left the store while the other one walked to the door and asked the guy “What do you want?” Then she went to the nearby Bellagio coffee shop to ask for help.
Meantime, Shirley was left alone in the gallery. The guy repeated “someone wants to shoot me, before that happens, I will shoot you first then I will shoot myself”.
Shirley couldn’t call the security because the guy would know. Their procedure is: when a call is received, the CCTV would be focused to your particular store and the security will call you using the landline phone to verify what’s wrong.
The guy continued “Call 911 and tell them you’ve been shot”.
Shirley was terrified but didn’t panic. She lifted the phone and called the security but she couldn’t talk.
The officer sensed something was definitely wrong and Shirley was told to keep calm and the officers would be there.
The black guy sensed that Shirley did not call 911. He asked her “you’re not calling the security right?” Shirley bluffed him by saying that the phone is only internal and she has to ask the operator to connect her to an outside line. By that time, one security officer arrived, followed by another, Shirley ran to the door , 13 more officers arrived to tackle down the deranged guy.
They were careful not to knock off all the expensive art pieces. It took 15 big men to finally handcuff and restrain the guy.
The hotel offered Shirley psychological therapy which she refused.
She told me God is still looking after her.
the black man? would you say white man?
I described the guy based on the description told to me by Shirley. I usually mention the race for clearer picture or to be more factual. If Shirley had told me the guy was a Filipino or Japanese, or white or Caucasian I would say the same thing, as told to me, that the guy was Filipino (or Japanese or white, or Caucasian for example), or male, female. No discrimination or racial profiling here.