Roamings of a Leo: Seattle's Chihuly Garden and Glass

In Seattle, Washington, on Sunday morning, July 13, Rick and Roberta picked me up from his sister's family where I was staying and took me to the new Chihuly Garden and Glass exhibit in the Seattle Center, just below the Space Needle. I have loved the glass sculptures designed by Dale Chihuly since I first enjoyed them at the Phoenix, AZ Desert Botanical Garden about five years ago with Rick's mom and dad. I enjoyed them again this spring when a new Chiluly exhibit opened in the Phoenix garden with lights for spectacular night viewing too.

So it was a renewed joy that I felt while viewing these wonders of color and form. The first part of the exhibit we viewed beautifully lit sculptures inside. Then we strolled through an amazing Glasshouse with a 100 foot long suspended sculpture that we viewed while looking up through the glass ceiling to the famous Space Needle from the 1962 Worlds Fair.
The outdoor sculptures are complimented by beautiful flowers and landscaping. This combined beauty made our spirits soar. Research has shown that viewing beauty elevates the mood. We were surrounded by beauty and we were elated.

Dale Chiluly is from Tacoma, Washington, just South of Seattle, which houses his studio/glass factory and museum. He has about 100 employees who create the sculptures under his supervision.

Here are my pictures of what we thoroughly enjoyed:

The "Glass Forest" was created by Chihuly when is was an instructor at the Rhode Island School of Design in 1971. The glass stalks or stems are illuminated with electrically charged neon and argon.

These sculptures were inspired by Navajo textiles and baskets and the artist's experience in weaving.

This photo and the ones below are of a 15-foot "Sealife Tower." The Tower and vessels in this room include forms such as starfish, octopus, conch shells, sea anemones, urchins and manta rays.

The "Persian Ceiling" was begun in 1986 and presented in 1992. It is lit from above and rests on a flat glass pane.

This giant sculpture, "Mille Fiori," which is Italian for a thousand flowers, fills a large room. I roamed around the sculpture and took pictures from several angles.

These photos are of "Ilebana and Float Boats." Chihuly used two wooden rowboats, one filled with Ikebana elements and another with Niijimo Floats. Their origins date to 1995 in Nuutajarvi, Finland, where the artist experimented with temporary installations along the shore of the river and tossed glass forms into it to see how the glass would interact with water and light. Local teenages gathered the drifting glass in rowboats, inspiring Chihuly to create a new type of installation.

Chihuly began the "Macchia" series in 1981 with the desire to use all 300 colors available to him in the hot-shop. Each work is speckled with color, which comes from rolling the molten glass in small shards of colored glass.

My friends Rick and Roberta enjoyed this glass house with the amazing sculpture.

This is the Space Needle viewed from inside the glass house.

These are a few of Chihuly's many chandeliers. In one exhibit in Venice, Italy in 1995, he hung thirteen chandeliers in outdoor sites throughout the city. He was inspired by the Murano Glass factory in Venice early in his career.