Glass. The word “glass” can conjure up different thoughts to different people. On a hot summer day one person might think, “I sure could go for a cold beer right now.” Another person might look out from their house and think, “Damn, those windows really need a cleaning!” A third person might return from a drive on a gravel road and wonder, “Didn’t I just replace that windshield last year?”
A drink, some household chores, an auto repair — no one thinks of a museum. But, if you happen to be driving through Tacoma, Washington, you might not just think of a museum, you might actually visit a Museum of Glass. And, as their sign says, it’s “ALL GLASS ALL THE TIME.”
Since I can’t describe it any better than they can, I’ll share that the Museum of Glass “is a premier contemporary art museum dedicated to glass and glassmaking in the West Coast’s largest and most active museum glass studio.” It hosts visiting artists, offers glass-blowing demonstrations, and provides classes for kids 12 and under as well as teens and adults. It’s one of the Top 10 tourist locations in Washington State. Even if you can’t make it to Tacoma, you can still watch activities on their Hot Shop Livestream.
The most interesting way to approach the museum is to walk over the 500 foot-long pedestrian bridge known as the Chihuly Bridge of Glass, named for Dale Chihuly, who is from Tacoma and may be the most well-known glass artist in the world. Some of Chihuly’s glass sculptures are very large. His chandelier for the Victoria and Albert Museum in London is 30-feet high. His largest glass sculpture is the ceiling chandelier at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas. That measures 9 meters (29 feet 6 inches) wide and 20 meters (65 feet 7 inches) long. The art works displayed on the Bridge of Glass are of a much more modest size. They’re laid out in three separate installations, the Seaform Pavilion, the Venetion Wall and the Crystal Towers.
The Seaform Pavilion is installed in the ceiling of a roof that covers part of the bridge. It contains 2,364 colorful pieces of hand-blown glass of all different shapes and sizes. You could get a stiff neck enjoying the piece of art!
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The middle of the bridge is marked by a pair of 40-foot tall Crystal Towers. They’re made to withstand the elements and glow softly at night. We weren’t there at night, but the atmospheric conditions that afternoon were just right to create a large sun halo.
The Venetian Wall is an 80-foot display case filled with more than 100 glass sculptures by Chihuly, specifically. You have to stand back to take it all in.
After standing back and getting immersed in the beautiful, colorful glass art, you should move in close to examine the details.
A much less colorful installation can be seen in one of the reflecting ponds. It looked to me as if it were made of pieces of melting ice.
What if you’re not planning to go to Tacoma? Well, if you live in the Midwest you’re in luck because you can see some great examples of Chihuly’s work at The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis. In the center of the museum, surrounded by the museum’s long spiral staircase, curling colorful glass rises up 43 feet in the Fireworks of Glass. This tower of glass is made up of more than 3,200 hand-blown pieces and is one of Chihuly’s taller installations.
Looking down at the tower you can see that it appears to be sitting on a floating glass base. This holds an additional 1,600 pieces of colorful glass. From the lower level of the museum you can walk under the installation and look up at these pieces of glass through a glass ceiling. Since this is a permanent installation, you don’t have to worry about beating a deadline to see it.
Well, I hope you had time for a cold beer because you need to get out and wash the windows and then get that windshield replaced!