Museum of Glass - Tacoma, WA

August 29, 2008

About two weekends before I went to visit Monica in Seattle, I turned on my TV which was tuned to PBS (I'm not much of a PBS watcher, but Erika had been visiting the night before and we had been laughing at the program "How to Speak American"). The show that was on was a special on a week-long collaboration of artists working with this guy named Dale Chihuly (check out his website: http://www.chihuly.com/). I wasn't actually planning on watching the special, but found myself staring wide-eyed at the TV for about an hour, realizing only about ten minutes before it ended that there were no commercials. The speed and and precision that these artists work with was amazing. Leaving the glass in the furnace for the right amount of time, rotating the piece at the perfect speed, and blowing just hard enough to make it the right size. And somehow, they are able to end up with a piece that looks near what they had envisioned to begin with, which is pretty amazing since it all starts out looking like a big red blob of goo.

Anyhow, the special was filmed at the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, WA and Monica and I decided to check it out since we had to go to Tacoma one of the day's I was up there for a doctor's appointment. The museum itself wasn't as spectacular as I had anticipated, unfortunately. don't get me wrong, the art was amazing and if I could have taken pictures of some of it I would, but you know, museum rules... But there were only three galleries and only two were open because the third was under construction for a new exhibit. After walking through the two galleries in about 20-30 minutes, Monica and I were trying to decide what to do next, when we realized all that was left was a small walkway with a few pieces and the "Hot Shop". So that was kinda disappointing. But over all, it was an interesting experience and there were some really cool things to see.














The "Hot Shop: was the most interesting part of the museum because you could actually see some of the artists making and blowing glass. The guy in the blue shirt was the artist and everyone else were helping him with the piece. It's amazing how much team work goes into creating a single piece! I think there were 7 or 8 people on the floor. We didn't spend too much time in here, so I'm not sure what the final result was, but it was so interesting to watch. (Oh, and check out the guy's t-shirt in the fourth picture)




































































A bridge over the freeway leads from the museum of glass to the Washington State History Museum. These huge blue spires made of glass were so cool. They reminded me of rock candy! You can see the cone of the Hot Shop in the background of the first picture.



















































A large wall was constructed on one side of the bridge that contained a large display of crazy glass works. A little further down the bridge was covered and the ceiling was filled with a bunch more. I think some of these pieces were made during the special I saw on T.V. and they were amazing! I think this was my favorite part of the whole trip!










































































































































These ducks were in a fountain outside of the museum. The looked like they were made out of metal, but as I walked down the stairs next to the fountain and was eye level with them that I realized they were made out of glass (which makes more sense since it was the museum of GLASS).