Wednesday,
January 24, 2018
Travelers
Rest Resort
Dade
City, Florida
75
F, Sunny
Just 40
minutes away in St. Petersburg, stunning
glass exhibits by Dale Chihuly,
glass artist extraordinaire, are housed in the first ever building specifically
designed for his work—art and architecture work together. Originally the TRR Garden
Club had planned a trip tomorrow to see the Morean Art Center ($17.95/pp), but not enough people signed up. Thank goodness
TK was willing to drive and we benefited from the beauty today!
Each room
of the permanent collection was amazing, a testament to the vision of a man who
was not afraid to find out if glass blowing and glass art had any limits. I
have seen Chihuly’s work before, but today every single step I took through the
art center made me gasp with delight.
The “Ruby Red Icicle Chandelier,” approximately
4 feet tall, hung alone in a room,” approximately 4 feet tall, hung alone in a
room projecting straight spikes of warm fire.
Ruby Red Icicle Chandelier/Dale Chihuly
Another chandelier, all blues of different hues, projected spirals, corkscrews, and curls tumbling and glowing overhead and seemed to energize the room like the waves of an ocean.
Blue Chandelier/Dale Chihuly
Blue Chandelier closeup
A boat
full of glass “Niijima Floats”
looked adrift in a sea of floats, yellows, reds, blues, greens, shining
brightly –akin to marbles though up to a foot in diameter.
Niijima Floats
After
viewing the exhibit we watched a film of one of Chihuly’s week long lecture
series that 10,000 people attended a few years ago. Dale Chihuly, born in 1941,
attended several universities for interior design, but became interested in
blown glass. He also studied Murano
glass in Italy and there learned the benefit of teamwork. I will not pretend to be his biographer, but
he certainly is an important glass artist of our time. TK and I have visited
many art glass factories, like Blenko
and Fenton Art Glass in West
Virginia, and Vitrix in Corning, New
York, yet none were on the scale of Chihuly. He is known for pushing the limits
of molten glass and the size of the sculptures.
The film
described different styles of his art—
Baskets-large basket-like bowls with
fluted edge
Chihuly Baskets
Seaforms—glass forms reminiscent of sea
urchins and sea shells
Macchia series—soft cylinders (3 ft.
high x 3 ft. wide) using 300 colors available in glass
Glass
designs inspired by Navajo and Pendleton
blankets--rolling the hot glass spheres in shards placed in a design
reminiscent of the weft and warp of the blankets
Persian series-starting with a geometric
shape and then letting them take their own shape—using a mold to flute the form
Chihuly Persians displayed overhead
Piccolo Venetians—free form creative
Putti—the artist forms a cherub like
figure with glass and then attaches it to another form, like a cylinder
Lobster-“some animals look good in glass”
Ikebana—named
for the ritualistic form of Japanese art arranging
Ikebana Closeup
Niijima Floats (some 40 inches in diameter)—inspired
by the glass floats used by Japanese fishermen-his most complicated
Fiori—a compilation of all his other
forms
I am so
grateful that we were able to see this permanent collection at the Morean Art
Center today—glass structures a delight at every turn.
Mary Lou wanted
us to dine at the 4-Star Vinoy Hotel on the waterfront for lunch. This grand
hotel was restored in the 1990s and the classic, historic dining room did not
disappoint—good service and excellent food, burgers ($18) done to perfection, Caesar
salad complete with anchovies, and perfect flounder sandwich.
Vinoy Renaissance Hotel
TK’s Take: Driving in Florida is a challenge.
JK’s Lesson Learned: B1 would not be pleased with
her grandma today. I decided not to take my new DSLR to the museum because most
museums do not allow photography. As I walked into the art center today, I
read, “Photography Welcomed.” Oh my, I was upset with myself. Doubly upset since
I forgot my phone—to walk into a museum so full of beauty without a camera is a
sin. (almost as bad as taking one’s camera, but not reinserting the SD card
like I did last week). I had to pry TK’s cell phone out of his hands so that I
could take the photos posted today.
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