Color and Form Overload

May 5, 2017

We continued our Chihuly Garden and Museum Tour starting back from the beginning of the Museum which is divided into several galleries or rooms. We started in a  hall that passed a darkened  room that was a forest of blown glass that was glowing with neon.





From there, it just kept getting better. The next room was dedicated to the local Native Americans. Chihuly had displays of their baskets and cloth, as well as many portraits.  His glassware took ideas from their art.

Another gallery only had a few little pieces and then one HUGE one that was vase-shaped but represented the sea and its creatures. I really loved it and spent a lot of time trying to photograph each species of creature. I also enjoyed how the glass looked like waves, when seen up close.  You'll get more detail if you will click on the picture to see it full screen.

The most mind blowing of the rooms was a huge and exuberant display of his various glass techniques.  It was called Milli Fiori, which is Italian for Thousand Flowers, and looked like a huge garden. The oval platform was probably fifty feet long and thirty feet across.  It was made out of a reflective black surface so the beauty was doubled. I looked great and almost overwhelming from end to end and then gave new and different views as you walked around it.

A smaller room held a platform with only two boats on it filled with his work.  One was full of floats and the other was full of what he called Ikebana. 

Another room, as well as an outside deck, held his chandeliers.

Another small room was dedicated to the Macchia Forest. This is a series of very large bowls in which he mastered the technique of putting a white, or cloud, layer, between two layers of glass embedded with colors. It makes for striking colors.  I attended a short discussion of how these bowls are made and got to be interactive with the bowls. They are displayed with light shining on them from above. But we shone our cell phone flashlights on the exteriors and found the colors appeared completely different. Another favorite.

A variation of how he exhibits his work is found in the Persian Ceiling Gallery. He lays down a layer of clear glass suspended across wooden beams, then layers on pieces of his work. I had to look this up and found a wonderful discussion of his Persian series and how it was inspired by the past, both Persian gardens and glass.  ALL the art is over head in this gallery. But the overhead lights wash the colors down the walls, making you feel as though you were in a magical cave.

I took pictures of two pictures that tell a story of how Dale Chihuly works. The first picture is of him painting.  These paintings sell for at least $2000, from what I could see in the gift shop. Chihuly's paintings were in large panels both within the museum and the Collection Cafe. (another blog) After he lost an eye in a glass blowing accident, he had others carry out his vision. He started to make drawings to communicate his ides to them, then went on to produce them as another art form.  The second picture is of a panel of his paintings shown in the Museum.

This is taken from another picture in the gallery showing how he shaped his large bowls before he lost his eye.

The museum offers "free pictures" of you.  I'm sure it was priced in the ticket cost and it also advertises the Museum. It did make a nice keepsake for Teri and me. We were sent an email, a few minutes after the picture was taken, with it as an attachment.






Here is a list of current and future exhibitions as well as collections. Some may be near you. Natalie and I visited the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Luis, Mo on the day the workers were packing up his glass onions that float on the lily pond,  in advance of the first freeze of the fall.

From greenroofs.com

Glassblowing Demonstration at Chihuly Garden and Museum

May 5, 2017

One of the interesting things at the Chihuly Museum was a glass blowing demonstration in the garden. The glassblowing ovens were built into an Airstream trailer which can be hauled to other locations.

Two men worked as a team to make a bowl. Here are the materials they are starting with .  

The rod is heated until it can stick to the glass and then the rod/glass are put back into the furnace, constantly spinning it at the same rate gravity pulls it down.

Then they added some color and reheated it

What it looks like while rolling the shape.

Then they heat and blow a small bubble into the glass.

Which blows it up into a sphere. Then back it goes to the furnace where it expands further.

The glass is worked further.

Until finally they attach second rod to what will become the bottom of the bowl.

And removed the first rod from what will become the open top of the bowl.

Then the glass has to be smoothed where the break occurred and the end is worked with several different tools.

To keep that spot hot,  and help smooth the glass, they used a blowtorch.




Ii has to be heated several times during this process

The second guy started another bit of glass in a different color for edged of the bowl while the first guy heated and worked the bowl.





This is how the molten glass looked after he rolled it in the color.

I  didn't get a picture of how they added the color but I think it happened just before they opened the glass to form the rim of the bowl.

The second guy opened the neck by inserting the tool while the first guy helped hold it steady even while constantly rolling the bowl with his other hand. See the purple rim?






They both worked the bowl to open it and keep the edges level.

A closeup

Polishing the bowl.

More work on the rim.

Finally they make a check on the bowl and show it to us.

Then worked on it some more.  Here the second guy is using the paddle to keep the heat from the glass off the arm of the first guy.

They are starting to take the bowl off the rod.

Making a final check.

A little more work on the rim area.

Cutting the bowl off the rod.

And setting it on a paddle just before the rod was fully taken off.

All done.

Except for a last smoothing where the rod was.

Then it was rushed to a kiln to cool.  If it cools too fast, it will break. I think it has to stay here over night.

This all happened in fifteen to twenty minutes.


On a personal note, we are having winter weather here. I managed to get in the second bluebird survey yesterday in very high winds and cool temperatures. Soon after I got back, we got intermittent rain which turned to snow over night. We are going to have intermittent snow showers through tomorrow morning.  It's definitely long John time.