Perfect Antidote
to Seattle’s Winter
Grey Palette, New
Chihuly Garden
and Glass
Words and Pictures
By Janice Nieder
Iconic Seattle: Chihuly,
Space Needle and rain
Dale Chihuly at work
A
s soon as I entered the exhibition I
thought that this is exactly how Alice
must have felt after she tumbled down
the rabbit hole into a fantasy world. This one is
populated with surreal, kaleidoscope-colored
glass creations ranging in size from minute,
gem-like balls to a 1,340-piece, 100-foot long
sculpture, hovering high overhead in the “Glass
House”, inspired by Dale Chihuly’s two favorite
buildings, Paris’ Sainte-Chapelle and London’s
Crystal Palace. Done in vibrant shades of
orange, yellow and red, it offers a warm
sunrise/sunset glass-framed view of the Space
Needle towering behind the building.
As you meander through the other eight galleries you’ll encounter elaborate installations
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grouped by theme such as Chihuly’s “Glass Forest” filled with squiggly, glass stems created by
simultaneously blowing and pouring molten
glass from the top of a stepladder to the floor
below, where the deflated bubble solidifies.
You’ll hold your breath in wonderment as you
enter the magical, marine-blue “Sealife Room”,
filled with sculpted sea urchins, anemones, star
fish octopus but sadly, no little mermaids. Look
up at the “Persian Ceiling” to enjoy a Fourth of
July firework finale anytime. Look, but don’t
touch, the 20 hand blown glass bowls that
sprout up in the “Macchia Forest”
Chihuly has often said, “I want my work to appear as though it came from nature so if someone found it… they might think it belonged