Dale Chihuly at the Missouri Botanical Garden

Dale Chihuly, Sunset Herons, 2006, Climatron, Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis, MO

Before James Cameron created the fantastical world of Pandora in the movie Avatar (2009), Dale Chihuly transformed the Missouri Botanical Garden into a mythical environment with his installation of colorful glass blown sculptures for the 2006 exhibition “Glass in the Garden.” One of the forty-eight site-specific works on display was Sunset Herons (2006), which was later purchased by the Garden with a gift from the Peters Family Charitable Fund (1). On a frigid day in January, I encountered a flock of these fanciful creatures nestled among the Climatron’s lush rainforest habitat.

Standing amid a clear pool of water, the orange tinged Herons are encircled by an eerie mist suffused with beams of lambent light, undoubtedly caused by the condensation produced by the warm humid air meeting the cold glass of the geodesic dome. Clustered into a tight formation, the tubular striped shapes, varying in height, rise up from the shallow pond and morph into bulbous forms, from which, thin nibs project. To discover Chihuly’s otherworldly avian beings dwelling among the dense variegated flora of the conservatory is like being transported to the legendary land of Eden.

Chihuly’s playful colorific sculptures seem to have this effect on a lot of people, which is probably why they are so beloved by the public. “Glass in the Garden” attracted 950,000 visitors during the course of the six-month exhibition (2).  And worldwide, Chihuly’s artworks have been collected by over 200 institutions (3).

Besides Sunset Herons, the Garden owns two additional pieces by Chihuly, which were also exhibited in the aforementioned show. Walla Walla Onions (2006) is a large-scale seasonal installation composed of an agglomeration of prismatic sculptures. During certain times of the year, they can be seen floating atop the surface of the central reflecting pool. Although the work references its namesake, the globular shapes remind me of gigantic peppermint drops reminiscent of the sweet delights found in the fantasy classic, Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971).

Blue Chandelier (2006), currently not on view, usually hangs in the atrium of the Ridgeway Center. Although resembling a candelabrum in form with its tiered structure, this amazing assemblage is more suggestive of a living organism. Constructed of 928 pieces of glass and weighing 2300 pounds, the cerulean and ivory coils, which make up the design, seem to writhe like tentacles probing the surrounding space (4).

When it comes to the art of glassblowing, Chihuly is a master of exploitation. Over the last four decades, he has expanded the medium into new artistic realms. Born in Tacoma, Washington in 1941, Chihuly’s experimentation with glass began while he was an interior design student at the University of Washington, Seattle. His early experiments, in which he used shards of glass, like thread, to weave into tapestries, relied heavily upon a craft tradition (5).

This decorative art sensibility stayed with him throughout his studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence. However, by the 1970s, after co-founding the Pilchuck Glass School in Seattle, Washington, his sculptures began to take on new forms. The further Chihuly move away from a traditional art base, the more his works defied classification. Now, his magical awe inspiring installations transcend even the category of fine arts, existing in a world all their own.

REFERENCES:

1. http://www.mobot.org/events/Assets/07004Chihulyonionsherons.pdf

2. Ibid.

3.  http://www.chihuly.com/museum-collections.aspx

4. http://www.mobot.org/events/Assets/07004Chihulyonionsherons.pdf

5. http://www.chihuly.com/chronology.aspx