Glorious Glass... Part 2

 

We're not done with the wonderful Chihuly at Biltmore exhibit. It begged to be more than one post! The colors, forms, and textures in his glass pieces are beyond description, so feast your eyes.

Looking into the glass sculptures is quite mesmerizing. There are thousands of glass pieces making up the display.

The glowing neon colors are like no glass I've ever seen and the pieces light up beautifully.

And the array of glass plant life forms makes for such a pleasing arrangement.

From tall and slender to twisted and serpentine, the arrangements of the pieces are attention grabbing.

This Mille Fiori installation is the centerpiece of the entire exhibit in my view. The artist's vision was inspired by Mille Fiori- an Italian word meaning "thousand flowers". The garden can be viewed from all sides, and there is much to see. It takes Chihuly and his entire team of artisans to blow the glass forms for installations like this one. If you have 20 spare minutes, here is a YouTube video showing the process of the designs. I hope you're packing your bags for a trip to Asheville, NC, and Chihuly at Biltmore. You won't be disappointed!

Glorious Glass...

 

For this post, my blog will be like a travelogue or a gallery tour. I had the wonderful opportunity to travel to Asheville, NC, to visit The Biltmore House and the Chihuly at Biltmore exhibit. Oh my, I love Dale Chihuly glass creations. I've seen them before at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, AZ, and the Chihuly Collection in St. Petersburg, FL. But they are worth seeing again and again! Near the entry of the exhibit we saw this spectacular array of colorful Navajo design wool trade blankets, many made by Pendleton Woolen Mills. Chihuly's collection of the vintage blankets inspired the vessels you'll see next. 

You can see the influence of the woven threads that were created with thin glass rods in these cylinders. They are part of his "Navajo Blanket Cylinders" series.

Native American designs of the Pacific Northwest later appeared in the glass vessels when he captured the soft sag of native baskets in his Soft Cylinders series. The shadow on the wall illustrates how translucent these colorful glass cylinders are. From the left are Pyrol Orange Soft Cylinder with Verditer Blue Lip Wrap; Rose Soft Cylinder with Forest Green Lip Wrap; Sun Yellow Soft Cylinder with Green Lip Wrap; and Verdant Green Soft Cylinder with Poppy Lip Wrap. So there's a new technical term for you- lip wrap! Just beautiful and the lip wraps provide just the right color accents.

Here we have Black Vivid Yellow Soft Cylinder with Scarlet Lip Wrap and Black Chartreuse Soft Cylinder with Forest Green Lip Wrap. Even the darker glass allows the light to shine through.

In another part of the exhibit we were treated to Chihuly's Icicle pieces. Each icicle is blown glass and then the individual pieces are assembled into either a tower, like this one, or a chandelier which hangs from the ceiling. Just imagine transporting and assembling these glass structures!

This is Radiant Yellow Icicle Chandelier with Royal Blue Icicle Tower in the background.

Is one Icicle Tower not enough? Are you wanting more? OK then, here are three of a kind- Serpentine Green Icicle Towers. Just amazing. I'll stop now, but there will be a Glorious Glass, Part 2 coming soon. Chihuly's work is so electrifying!