Chilhuly Columbus: Columbus Art Museum

The next stop for us, and I recommend that you do it in this order as well was the Columbus Art Museum. I make this suggestion because if you go to the Franklin Park Conservatory first you can get $2.00 per person tickets to the Art Museum.

Much of the Art Museum is closed as it is undergoing renovations. As I have managed to go through two museum renovations in my career, I really feel for the staff. While much of the permanent exhibitions were closed, the Chilhuly exhibition was wonderful. I also have to applaud them for coming up with great interactive elements to the exhibition and a fantastic children's area. More on that tomorrow.

This is the entrance to the exhibition. With its subtle color palette it hardly prepares you for the riot of what is to come.




For me, the most magnificent part of the installation was the Mille flore garden. No matter how many times you walked around it, you saw new things, wonderful angles and much more to appreciate the combination of color and form.

The room was completely darkened with the light focusing on the works....absolutely stunning!





I think I could have shot photographs of this all day. Hats off to Dale Chiluly and his team and the Art Museum for this installation.
















One of the fun things about this portion was that they had "Glo Pads" for the visitors to sketch out what they saw, or outline the various shapes and the interplay as they looked through the pad.

A Glo Pad is basically a hi-tech etchasketch in a way. The frame has lights in the sides and there are two sheets of some plastic film. A stylus transfers the shape on to the film. You can see the mysterious green glow in the back in this photo. The two squares and people using the Glo-pads to experience the installation.



Several of Chilhuily's chandeliers are also included in the exhibition.





Here, you can see some of Dale Chihuly's Native American Trade Blanket collection. Some of his blankets inspired glass interpretations. This style of his work and his collection were previously highlighted at Lowell, Massachusetts in the Textile Museum. I saw it there years ago and was impressed.





















Happily for me, the Art Museum included examples of his Native American basket collection. You can see the baskets with the glassworks inspired by the artifacts next to them. I love how the glass has the organic shapes which the grass baskets take on over time.








Many of Chilhuly's sketches--paintings really -- which lay out areas he wants to work with were also on exhibiton.

Not to worry, while it looks like the woman is touching the images, she is standing about three feet away. I watched them for a while as this couple really were interacting with the exhibition and as a former curator, it did my heart good.

More tomorrow....