The Glass sculptures begin before you even enter the building. Here Syrah and I are standing outside what is called the Fluent Steps. At night it lights up which would be amazing to see.
You can't take pictures of the art inside, but you can take pictures of the hot shop; the hot shop is where glass art is being made live and each week they have a new featured artist. I could have sat in here for hours!! It was amazing to see that one piece takes an entire team and how one minor mistake can set an artist back hours. In this picture you can see a man on the far right holding a microphone. He takes questions from the audience and also you can watch the hot shop live and post a question which he will answer (technology is awesome!). The man behind him you can see is holding up a pole. There is women on the other side of the room (not in picture) holding a pole also and they are stretching a piece of hot glass to make a colored glass rod. These rods are used to make color within glass pieces. The entire process is quite amazing!!
The museum has an great area for kids. They have a craft each day (maybe it's by week) and also a contest where a child creates a photo and the hot shop team will select one a month and turn it into a piece of art. The museum puts the child's art and the glass piece on display, but they also make a second piece for the child to take home. If you want to read more about the contest and see some of the past winners and their work click here.
On our way out there was this water/glass display called Water Forest; the ripples in the clear is actually water flowing on the outside of the piece.
Around the corner there is an amazing stairway appropriately named the Grand Staircase that leads up to Chihuly's Bridge of Glass; you can see a gallery of the bridge which is in itself worth the trip to the Museum.
When you arrive at the top of the stairs you enter the bridge and this is what you find. The massive size is not even close to being represented in these photos! This section of the bridge was yards and yards and yards of glass embedded in this wall that was over the I-5 freeway.
To give a small indication of the size of these pieces of Chihuly's work; you can compare them to the size of this picture of Sadie and myself.
One of our favorite pieces is the one behind the girls in this photo. I am taken back by the stem of this flower. It is even more striking to see all this after spending time in the hot shop as you really learn to appreciate every tiny detail.
Just another one of my favorites; I have TONS of pictures of the ones I loved... there really isn't one I didn't love!
On our way out you find this display, Mirrored Murrelets, all glass birds (over 250) of them. I encourage you to take off and go to the Tacoma Museum of Glass and see all that they offer, we know we will go back!!
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