Chihuly Garden and Glass, Seattle

I spent a few days in Seattle over Easter, visiting there with a friend of mine who is currently teaching in Montana. We decided to visit the Space Needle and the Chihuly Gardens on a sunny Friday morning. (The next day was rainy so this was a good choice).

The Garden was purchased as part of our entry to the Space Needle – you can buy a combined ticket.

The exhibits are broken in to two distinct parts – indoors and outdoors. I have always been fascinated with the glass produced by Chihuly – he manages to make incredible organic shapes from what is a rigid material.

I am not going to give you long arty explanations of the work – hey, I know what I like, and I like this.

Some indoor shots:

There is an interesting area with a glass ceiling where the pieces are laid on the glass and lit from above – it creates all sort of amazing patterns on the walls:

The next gallery contains an amazing display of glass with dozens of different shapes, textures, colours:

The next gallery had a boat covered in glass spheres of many colours:

A lot of areas had huge, multi-element, displays hanging from the ceilings – spectacular and scary at the same time:

The last inside gallery contained the vases and bowls that I know best:

You leave the inside section via a large Glasshouse which features red, yellow and orange glass flower strung from the ceiling, running the full length of the space, twisting and turning as if on a summer breeze:

Once you exit the Glasshouse, you enter the gardens proper. They feature installations which mix plants, flowers, natural materials with glass elements of multiple sizes and shapes. Some are designed to imitate plants whilst others are just there to contrast with the complexity of nature: