Loose Leaf Notes

‘Looks like you’re at a party,’ my son Josh texted after I sent him a picture of Joe and me in front of the scene in the picture above. I wanted to see if he, an artist, could guess where we were.

Next, I sent him bigger clue, a picture of Dale Chihuly, the world renowned glass artist who created the scene. I took that picture from a video at the Chihuly Collection in St. Petersburg, Florida, where Joe and I were on vacation.Josh was busy in Pittsburgh, presenting at NCECA, a National Ceramics Conference, and our communication lapsed.  I’m still waiting to hear what he thought of the photo I sent him of me sitting on a bench with a large melted clock. Would he guess that we went from the Chihuly Collection to the Salvador Dali museum? Dali was one of Josh’s early favorite artists.

Seeing Chihuly’s work has been on my bucket list for years, and it didn’t disappoint. The translucent bright colors of flowers, chandeliers and more warmed me long after I saw them.

My favorite piece was probably the Persian Ceiling. Joe liked it too, so much so that he laid on the floor to experience it.

One of the museum’s staffers showed me how to look at the work piece-by-piece and not just as a whole.  She pointed out a glass angel and a nautilus shell.

Glass flowers seemed to be sprouting up everywhere.

We learned a lot by listening to a guide give insights on the pieces to a roomful of students.Here, the guide explains how the piece that Josh said looked like a party was a homage to Chihuly’s mom and her garden. The pieces are so big that they couldn’t be blown in Seattle, where Chihuly lives on a houseboat. Chihuly and his glass blowing team went to Finland to create the large pieces. He also explained that the colors in the glass come from compounds that are used to make acrylic paints and pastels.  Gold and tin make the red glass.

The more layers of glass that you add, including layers of color, means the bigger the piece you can make from the initial bubble of molten glass, the guide said while describing the pieces in Chihuly’s Macchia Forest.Through watching the video at the exhibit, we learned that Chihuly has created exhibits in Jerusalem and London, and collaborated with a master glass blower in Italy.  My favorite part of the video documented a sculpture of large ice slabs lit up in bright lights. The glass-like ice melted slowly, creating surprising forms. I also heard that in one installation Chihuly and his team let glass-blown balls float down a river and then collected them in a rowboat.

We also visited the museum’s glass studio Hotshop and watched glass being made.  HERE’S a clip from the exhibit video showing Chuhuly’s collaboration with an Italian glass blowing master.

Chuhuly’s work is coming to the Biltmore in Asheville, NC, this year, starting May 17th!

_______________Shadow Shot Sunday  / Our World Tuesday