Wednesday, September 22, 2010

The world through glass

Last May, I opened my e-mail to find that a Chihuly exhibit was coming to Nashville to the Cheekwood Botanical Gardens. For those who haven't heard of him, Chihuly is an American glass sculptor. I combined this with my trip to watch the NFL game last Sunday, viewing the exhibit on Saturday.

I had heard about this from photo bloggers. Two are Julie at Scottsdale Daily Photo and Sharon at Phoenix Daily Photo. A Chihuly exhibit has recently been in Phoenix AZ and they took photos. I had also seen excellent images of his work by Wolynski here and here.

I mentioned to a friend that I was going to the Chihuly Exhibit, and she said, "Oh, I saw it in Israel." Dale Chihuly sure does get around. Some exhibits travel and a few are permanent. For example, one opened in New York City Sept. 16, and another is opening in Chicago on Nov. 5. (Schedule is here.) Poker players and other degenerates might be interested to know that there is a permanent one located at the Bellagio in Las Vegas.


Above: Bamboo reeds -- Chihuly exhibits try to blend his work into the environment. The one in Phoenix, for example, had cactus, etc. He first made bamboo reeds after a trip to Japan.


During the 1995 Chihuly Over Venice project, Chihuly often tossed glass into the river, letting it float downstream. Teenagers in small wooden rowboats gathered them. It is likely from that he conceived the idea for a new installation shown above.


Above: Amber cattails shoot up from a flower bed. In Phoenix, he had them arise from a cactus bed (see here).


Images by MOJO and taken with my Canon. These are straight out of the camera except for Nos. 2 and 3 that were cropped slightly.

For techno-geeks like OhCaptain, most were shot at 1/200th of a second, F5.0 and ISO of 100.

7 comments:

  1. They have one similar to the squiggley yellow one at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. I didn't know the history. Suzi (Footnotes) laid down flat on the floor to get a straight-up shot. This one was suspended from the ceiling.

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  2. No "OH Captain" here, just love the pics!

    :)

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  3. Wow, they are really beautiful - and somewhat scary at the same time. With any luck they hit my local shores sometime.

    /j.

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  4. Mojo, what beautiful photos, or what beautiful subject matter - i don't know which, but thanks. The one on the river is my new desktop background!

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  5. I've seen a lot of the man's work - largely at the two blogs you cited...but your photos are really very fine! Just excellent, in fact! He does some amazing work!

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  6. Hi MOJO: Thought I'd respond to your question on Ocala...

    No, we didn't drive a Corvette to Colorado! Would be a little tight with the two of us, our Golden Retriever and all the luggage and cameras!

    If I had your email I'd send you a photo of what we did drive, though...

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  7. Poker players (and gamblers in general) will know Chihuly's work from the lobby of the Bellagio in Las Vegas.

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