On multiple visits to Seattle I've visited the Space Needle and even the EMP Museum, but haven't had the opportunity to visit the Chihuly museum right next door. It has been on my list of must-sees since the first time I visited Seattle.
One year, I had my students create little faux-Chihuly glass sculptures out of markers, coffee filters, and starch spray and I hung them all over the wall in our room. That was before I knew he was from Seattle and that I would be moving here, so when I found out that there are a couple glass museums of his work here, I was excited to check them out.
One of the museums is in Tacoma, actually right across the street from the Museum of Washington History, and I admired it from afar when I was there but didn't go visit. It is on my list of future activities.
Instead we spent the day downtown at the Chihuly Garden and Glass Museum. I drove and attempted parking. The parking spots here are the smallest, most narrow parking spots ever made and my beast of a car barely fits. I can get my car into a parking spot, but I have to crawl out the trunk because my doors won't open. It's very stressful. I had two people helping me get my car into the parking space in the lot downtown. Then it cost $15 for a couple hours to leave it there.
We admired these cool panels for a little too long and decided they were created to disguise the ugly parking lot and separate it from the land of museums and Space Needle tourism. They were kind of cool though. Reminded me of wheat and Kansas!
You actually get a discount here if you live here! Yay! The museum has an indoor exhibit and a garden exhibit. I've creeped on the garden exhibit from outside the fence before, but you only get a tiny sneak peek from there. Inside is cooler.
The museum was divided into rooms and themes. I didn't do much reading, mostly just admiring and skimming the information to see what I was admiring.
This room was all glass from when Chihuly was experimenting with non-symmetrical designs. It was combined with the Native American influences and blankets. The blankets are really symmetrical so I thought it was interesting that the two were related and combined.
The next room was an under the sea theme. It had all his sketches and then finished products. They sketches were...vague. It was interesting to see how they became such detailed artwork.
We walked through a small room with a collection of glass works on the ceiling. I felt like I was in one of those I-spy books because there was so much going on and if you looked carefully you could see little sea creatures or cherubs/mermaids sprinkled throughout the display.
Then you were welcomed into this magnificence. My camera just couldn't do it justice. There was so much going on in this room!
...and then my favorite indoor piece: this canoe of orbs.
which was strangely offset by this canoe of craziness right next to it...
and I loved it. I want the orb canoe in my house. It wouldn't fit, but I could figure something out. Maybe get rid of the sofa or something.
Next was the chandelier room. Crazy cool and kind of scary...I mean, what if they fell??
My second favorite room was this room full of bowls. They were all lit from above to appear like they were glowing from the inside. Gorgeous.
And of course, the famous flowers by the garden and cafe.
The garden exhibit was so beautiful. Early this year I went to someone's house and they had glass art in their garden and if I ever have a garden and gardener (haha) then I will put glass art in it.
The blue glass looks like rain. The garden is right next door to the Space Needle so you get some really cool views.
My favorite outdoor sculpture was this pinkish purple one because I think it looks like rock candy. It isn't as smooth as the others and looks a little different than the rest of Chihuly's work here.
We left the museum and drove over to the Phinney Ridge neighborhood for an afternoon brunch at Phinney Market. Delish. I was stuffed.
Beautiful day in the city!
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