Chihuly Garden and Glass: New Seattle Museum worthy of “Wow!”

By guest writer Diane Medved

It’s been open just three weeks, but even months
before, my husband and I were peeking through the reed-
like iron fence and boarded-up perimeter of glass-master
Dale Chihuly’s new museum taking shape in the shadow of
the Space Needle at Seattle Center. Now that I’ve had a
chance to wander through, my reaction is “Wow!” not just
for the brilliant colors, wormy, blobby and creative
shapes, stunning yet familiar compositions, but for the
fantasy-worldly experience that plucked me from normal
life into enlarged imagination.

I’m a sucker for bright colors, and so’s Dale Chihuly,
as most of his innovations involve strong hues in moving
shapes. The only muted room of 9 honors the Northwest,
where a display of vintage earth-toned Native American
baskets, warped by use and time, is mimicked by similarly
slumping glass cylinders and bowls in pale egg and ochre
tones. But even that display, complemented by dozens of
sepia Edward S. Curtis photogravures of dignified local
native residents, occupies a hall where spotlights
illuminate a wall of brightly-patterned blankets. It seems
every Chihuly idea needs primary color pop.

Rowboat of floats reflect; at right is end of Ikebana
boat
And so, entering each subsequent room brings a gasp of
surprise and delight. My personal favorite was the Ikebana
and Float Boat room, where twin wooden rowboats, reflected
on black acrylic stands, hold colorful round bubble-
floats, and twisty spiral tubes, respectively. The
bubbles, some nearing two feet in diameter, had been
tossed as an art experiment into the river near Chihuly’s
Nuutajarvi, Finland workshop and gathered by local teens
into their rowboats, inspiring the arrangement.

Another of my faves is the Mille Fiori room, where
brilliant oceanic forms squirm and writhe up from the
reflective acrylic, culminating with a yellow “tower” of
wriggling tubes, the form for which Chihuly is probably
most famous. Mille Fiori, of course, means “thousand
flowers,” but this darkened room definitely feels
underwater, despite the tower’s explosion of hot colors.
The long, hollow forms were fitted over pipes embedded in
a concrete stand, not only to provide secure structure but
to allow the artist to change the composition’s components
with ease.

I learned about the exhibits not only from posted
descriptions but from a docent whose five-minute
explanations suggested her own expertise as a glass-
blower. The garden, with its central medusa-ish orb, often
the only “Sun” in our rainy clime, fascinated tourists who
learned how long reed shapes are gravity-pulled and
annealed, and how chunks of a resin-ish looking material
in another garden feature were Chihuly’s own invention,
for outdoor projects that would otherwise burst from heat
and cold. Four-foot glass spikes were like sister shoots
in the garden surrounded by the sticker-edged growth of
(real) blue thistles.

Other memorable environments were created in the
Persian Ceiling room, where overhead an amalgam of bright
back-lit pieces jumble large and small. “Persian” glass
forms are circular, open plates, irregularly and flowingly
devised, reminiscent to me of splayed jellyfish or seaweed
flowers that would undulate with the currents. With
Chihuly’s penchant for unusual spirochete, amoeba and
anemone-like forms, nine resin-style cherubs tucked among
them seemed out of place, but easily ignorable as your
neck crinks in fascination with the ample array of weird,
mutatious shapes above.

The architectural centerpiece of the museum is the
Glasshouse, an arched-sided greenhouse-like hall inspired
by Chihuly’s love of plant conservatories. Looking up
through the clear roof past suspended sets of flower-vine-
like Persians, you can see the Space Needle loom, peering
at its curious Lilliputian admirers.

And so we were indeed in awe, captivated by the
creativity and revved by the intensity of the panoply of
Pantone, blasted in our awareness by startling
confrontation. And of course, I wanted to capture it all,
and yes! Photography was not only allowed, but roving
staff photographers obligingly took our photos free, with
the stunning glass backdrops, sent home by email.

My thrill renews when I view my photos (some in this
post) from yesterday, but the images only urge me to
escape again to that wondrous world of shape and movement
and color. If you come to Seattle, don’t miss it.
www.Chihulygardenandglass.com