Desert Art – Chihuly Night Show at Desert Botanical Gardens

Red Reeds at Twilight

go site Red Reeds at Twilight © 2014 Bo Mackison

Chihuly’s art glass on exhibit at Desert Botanical Gardens in Phoenix.

source url After dark, the installations are illuminated , and offer a totally different viewing experience.

Illuminated Purple Reeds

https://www.rmporrua.com/7qrsdvlffv Illuminated Purple Reeds © 2014 Bo Mackison

Summer Sun by Chihuly, Night

click here Summer Sun by Chihuly, Night © 2014 Bo Mackison

Yellow Octopi in the Cacti

go Yellow Octopi in the Cacti © 2014 Bo Mackison

Blue Sapphire Star at Night

https://tvnordestevip.com/ql0sdcpyv Blue Sapphire Star at Night © 2014 Bo Mackison

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Desert Art – Blue Fiori Sun

Blue Fiori Sun, 2013

source site Blue Fiori Sun ©2014 Bo Mackison

Chihuly in the Garden is the second exhibit of glass artist Dale Chihuly held at Phoenix’s Desert Botanical Gardens.

Buy Diazepam Online Australia I was lucky enough to attend Chihuly’s first exhibit, The Nature of Glass, in the winter of 2008. I fell in love with his signature hand-blown glass art sculptures. When I discovered a second Chihuly exhibit was returning this winter/spring, I knew I would be back, too.

see This time I went better prepared, with six more years of experience with photography, and the proper equipment — a tripod — to handle low light, long exposures. (Still processing the night photos — coming soon!)

Blue Fiori Sun, 2013

http://lisapriceblog.com/59oavnk0b Blue Fiori Sun Amid the Desert Green © 2014 Bo Mackison

This exhibit is Chihuly’s twelfth installation in an outdoor botanical garden setting.

click here There are 21 installations in the Phoenix exhibition. I saw 16 of them in a whirlwind 4 hours. I wasn’t planning on making the trip to Phoenix again, and so I tried to see as much as I could — not the way I prefer to see art in any setting. I did take extra time at each installation,  just to take in the art glass in desert surroundings, but I seldom had as much time as I would have liked.

https://www.accessoriesresourceteam.org/art/cheap-valium-australia.php Now I’m planning a return visit, determined to build more time into the visit for pure appreciation.

Blue Fiori Sun, 2013

see Blue Fiori Sun ©2014 Bo Mackison

The exhibition is strategically placed on  55 acres of the 140 acre garden.

https://www.prestoavenuedesigns.com/save/buy-diazepam-legally-uk.php There are 21 installations. Major installations are at the entrance, groupings of slender reeds follow pathways, and large works of art highlight the desert landscape. The Blue Fiori Sun, completed in 2013, is one of two major installations at the entrance.

https://tudiabetesbajocontrol.com/relanzam/buy-daz-diazepam.php A 2010 creation, Sapphire Sun, greets all visitors as they walk through the gates.  Just beyond that global wonder in the Blue Fiori Sun set amid cholla, barrel cacti, and yucca.

Blue Fiori Sun, 2013

go here Close Up Blue, Fiori Sun © 2014 Bo Mackison

source [Chihuly] “produces the psychedelic experience of a magical, glowing, and sparkling, brilliantly alive panorama without drugs. This enchanted glass world has as much to do with Alice in Wonderland and the Wizard of Oz as it does with the great Renaissance and Baroque festivals that sovereigns arranged to entertain their courts and subjects.”
Barbara Rose, Dale Chihuly’s Paradise Regained

Blue Fiori Sun, 2013

Buy Valium Nz Blue Fiori Sun ©2014 Bo Mackison

 I love how the glass art nestles into the nearby landscape, giving it the appearance of a desert life form.

enter site A highly unlikely blue color, but still, the art looked as if it truly belonged there, as if it had grown organically from the desert ground. I love the natural desert, solitary walks in the wilderness desert, but Chihuly offers a unique, mind-stretching experience in a desert based garden.

https://riverhillcurrent.com/syne6x1dc More Chihuly: The Night Show

Desert Art – Chihuly’s Neodymium Reeds and Black Niijima Floats

Chihuly's Neodymium Reeds 2013

Chihuly’s Neodymium Reeds © 2014 Bo Mackison

I love botanical gardens, I love the desert, and I love Dale Chihuly’s huge glass art installations.

When I discovered that the Desert Botanical Gardens in Phoenix was hosting another Chihuly exhibition I made plans to attend. As members of the Gardens, we made advance reservations for the 4 pm to 8 pm slot on a recent Friday evening. Choosing the later hours gave me opportunity to photograph the many exhibits during daylight, at dusk, and in the dark when the sculptures were illuminated.

Chihuly's Neodymium Reeds 2013

Chihuly’s Neodymium Reeds © 2014 Bo Mackison

In Finland we started making these long, cylindrical pieces that looked like spears. This was an exciting new form. It was the first time we ever made anything like that. Sometimes I call them spears and sometimes I call them reeds. They can be taken anywhere—they can go outside. They are very strong pieces, and they are very dramatic. ~ Dale Chihuly

There were at least a dozen installations, large installations featuring intricately shaped glass art.

Since I had the luxury of time, and perfect weather, I studied each installation from several different perspectives. I tried to see each installation as a whole, from a distant path or in the desert setting amidst saguaro and organ pipe cacti. Then I experimented, moving closer and closer until I could take a close up of a part of each installation.

Chihuly's Neodymium Reeds 2013

Black Niijima Float © 2014 Bo Mackison

This particular installation featured reeds and floats.

There were nearly a hundred glass reeds in varying hues of purple, and in opalescent, dotted, and clear glass. There were several globes, Black Niijima Floats, set among the reeds.

Half Globe

Half Globe © 2014 Bo Mackison

The black floats were among my favorites.

I loved how the globes captured the reflections of the adjacent purple reeds, the overhanging palo verde, and the cacti.

Chihuly Globe

Chihuly Globe © 2014 Bo Mackison

I’ve never done anything like the Floats. They are probably the most monumental-looking, since there’s no reminiscence of a container shape. Just because they are so big, the Floats are technically, or let’s say physically, the most difficult things that we have ever done. Even though a sphere or a ball is about the easiest form you can make in glass, when you get to this scale, up to forty inches in diameter, it becomes extremely difficult. ~ Dale Chihuly

It is an amazing concept, studying these black floats, these perfect globes shimmering with gold and silver leaf, and visualizing their creation as blown glass.

More  Chihuly: Cattails in the Garden

6th Annual Photo Alphabet – The Finale – Universe to Zip A Dee Doo Dah

U is for the Universe.

Kitt Peak

See the Universe @ 2013 Bo Mackison

No place better to view the distant Universe than an observatory on the peak of a dark mountain.

We arrived at the Kitt Peak National Observatories in southern Arizona in mid afternoon, and stood amidst the dozens of observatories, home to a variety of telescopes. Scientists from all over the globe come here to study the Universe and beyond. My daughter, who was visiting from Wisconsin, and I were eager to participate in the Night Observing Program.

Huddled together in the dark confines of a small observatory, our group of fifteen took turns peering into a powerful telescope. We viewed Jupiter and her moons, double stars, the rings of Saturn. It was a thrilling experience, especially the realization that we could see the rings of Saturn with our eyes, using only optical instruments.

It was an amazing visual connection.

It was a cold night on top of the 10,000+ foot peak in February. We didn’t linger outside, rather we settled in a warm classroom and listened to a short program by a visiting astronomer. I still haven’t forgotten his closing words. After describing the evolution of the solar system and showing us stunning photographs of the heavens, he simply said:

“You are all stardust. You are all bits of star light.”

~~~~~

V is for Vines.

Rusty Red

The View @ 2008 Bo Mackison

This photograph of a rusty barn, covered with bare climbing vines, was one of my early favorites.

It was also my first published photograph, printed in an award-winning magazine, Wisconsin People and Ideas. It was my first inkling that others found my photographs interesting.

The composition and subject were simple – an open window, the view partially obscured by a tangle of vines, a tin roof with rusty patina, a hint of shingles and red paint, a lightning rod to ward off danger, the bare winter branches.

A study of lines and mood, a feel of wabi-sabi. A hint of things to come, the hallmark of many of my later photographs.

It remains one of my favorites, still.

~~~~~

W is for Words and Wisdom Cards.

IMG_4512-Edit

Words © 2013 Bo Mackison

In March of this year, I created my first Desert Wisdom Card.

The card’s theme was PLAY and I included a photo of a bunch of pottery jackrabbits playing musical instruments. Every time I looked this photograph, I smiled, it was that kind of photo. I wanted to share that feeling, so I posted the photo and musings about play on my blog.

By the end of June, my first Desert Wisdom Card Set, 24 cards in all, was complete.

During the summer, I experimented with many ways to create an art edition of the Desert Cards. At a friend’s invitation, I attended a book structures workshop taught by Jackie Hefty at her Whispering Woodlands Studio, just west of Madison. I was enchanted by Jackie’s hand-crafted books, many composed with letterpress printing.

When we toured her studio, I discovered her letterpress printer — it was love at first sight!

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Imagination – Perseverance ©2013 Bo Mackison

When I told Jackie I wanted to print my wisdom cards, she offered to mentor me in the ways of the letterpress. I learned to set type on a composing stick, tie type, set type on the letterpress bed, and clean and work a letterpress. I printed the first set of cards, one page at a time. It was a  Zen experience. Simple yet precise, rhythmic, slow art.

I took photos to document the process, and photographed two lines of type which I had tied together. (When I set the words on the press, I separated the words and printed two words on a single sheet of paper.

Unintentionally, I had bundled the words “imagination” and “perseverance” together.

I loved the serendipity of that combination, reflecting on the journey of the Wisdom Cards — from a vision in my imagination to their physical creation, a path which required a lot of perseverance along the way.

Since publication, I’ve been honored to send 20 of the 26 sets of the hand created cards to new owners.

Recently, I printed a second series of Desert Cards.

This set of 16 cards, all new words, new photographs, can be used as companion cards to the original set, or as a set on their own. They will be available in early 2014.

The Wisdom Cards set me in motion a new path.

Inspired by the desert and her wisdom, I am currently planning new ways of combining those passions with my love of photography and wordsmithing. Complete details coming in January. (It’s going to be a very busy time in the desert.)

~~~~~

X is for eXploration.

Creative Cairn

Explore @ 2012 Bo Mackison

“The seeker embarks on a journey to find what he wants and discovers, along the way, what he needs.”
~ Wally Lamb

It was all about my constant yearning to explore.

My desire to walk the crooked path, inch along the mountain ledge, cross the desert arroyo, discover the hidden in the foggy forest, has led me to many places of discovery. Places that I fall in love with, places that continue to teach me valuable lessons, places that open my mind, my heart, my spirit.

~~~

Y is for Yucca.

Yucca

Yucca Shadow @ 2013 Bo Mackison

“It is … through the world of the imagination which takes us beyond the restrictions of provable fact, that we touch the hem of truth.”
~ Madeleine L’Engle

Yucca is my reminder.

There are sharp points along the way. There are shadows mingled with sunlight. There is beauty in the common. There is life in the desert.

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Z is for Zip A Dee Doo Dah.

Canopy Hike - Swinging

Zip Line @ 2011 Bo Mackison

There are times to honor with celebration – celebrate with a song and a leap and a zip a dee doo dah!

Celebrate changes. Celebrate who I am today.

How have I changed from the person I was a year ago?

Am I more courageous? Am I open to new and exciting opportunities?  Yes, I am.

Did I learn how to gently grow my business while keeping it within my comfort zone, within my do-ablility?  Yes, I did.

Am I capable, am I strong? Yes. Yes, I am.

Not perfectly. Not without many falters and missteps. But I am calling progress what it is — PROGRESS. I am owning not only my failures, but also my successes.

It is s a time for celebration. As the time approaches to say farewell to 2013, I choose to leap upon the zip line, with a cheer for the new year,

“Zip a Dee Doo Dah!”

~~~

Thus ends my annual photo alphabet for 2013.

Thank you.

I am ever so grateful to have the privilege and gift of time to reflect over the past year, and bring these photographs and words together in an end of the year tribute. Grateful for you, my readers. Grateful for the coming of the New Year.

Farewell, 2013. Welcome, 2014.

May the coming year be one of much wisdom, delight, and blessings for all.

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6th Annual Photo Alphabet – An Exploration of 2013 – Arizona to Dreams

Welcome to my Holiday Tradition – my Annual Photo Alphabet.

Today I begin posting my photo alphabet in six parts, culminating on December 31st — just in time to welcome the New Year 2014!

Please join me during the next 6 days as I explore adventures, travel, learning, and change in 2013.

~~~

A is for Arizona and Arroyos.

Cold Front Sunset

Arizona © 2012 Bo Mackison

Hello, Arizona. My adopted state.

When I first visited Arizona, I stayed a week. It only took seven days for me to fall madly in love with the desert. The second year I rented a condo for 8 weeks — my “Bo goes Solo” experience — the first time I’d lived on my own since my college days. The third year I joined the Snowbird Migration, and Sherpa and I made Quail Condo our very own.

Backyard Roadrunner

Arroyo Visitor © 2012 Bo Mackison

There are dozens of reasons I love our casita in Arizona.

The sunshine is a major factor. I have Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) and now I enjoy the winter months instead of braving my way through cloudy winters and even cloudier moods. I love the arroyo in my backyard – wild and thick with cacti, mesquite, and acacias.

There are always birds in the trees and at the feeders – several kinds of hummingbirds, orioles, tanagers, vermillion flycatchers, woodpeckers. Gambel’s quails scramble on the ground, rushing from one bit of cover to the next. Occasionally a road runner struts past.

Coyote and bobcats prowl in the early morning hours. I’ve even had a javelina – a kind of wild pig – poke its nose onto my porch, sniffing for a handout, although I let him know he was not invited to dinner!

And most of all,  I love hiking in the nearby Sonoran Desert, camera and journal in hand. Exploring, Listening. Connecting.

~~~

 B is for Bridge.

Misty Bridge

Bridge in Fog © 2009 Bo Mackison

Bridges are connections.

Some days they are shrouded in fog. The iron trusses may be slick with ice. Some of the wooden planks may be missing, or weakened. But when the goal you want to reach is on the opposite shore, it’s time to assess the risk associated with crossing the bridge.

Life stories are bridges, too.

They connect the past with the present and affect the future. I can choose to let my past affect my choices, the risks I am willing to take, the work I accept. Or I can test the bridge, take each step with caution, but maintain forward movement.

My favorite message from this particular bridge photograph is this — even if you can see land on other side, there are no guarantees that what you think you see is what you see. The fog is a reminder that, clear or foggy, we travel across many bridges, and life does not adhere to rigid plans, no matter how well scheduled or executed.

Surprises – such as fog on the bridge – add an element of wonder, challenge, and plenty of opportunity for serendipity!

~~~

C is for Changes, Choices, and Celebration

Seisomgraph Station

Measuring Changes © 2013 Bo Mackison

Don’t you love this vintage seismograph station?

It is located in the heart of Lassen Volcanic National Park in northern California. Although this 90-year-old station has been replaced by a more modern facility, the building stands, testimony to those who monitored the volcanic activity in the park around the clock.

The building is tiny, only space enough for the delicate equipment that measured tiny changes in the movement of the earth.

I once had my own internal seismograph equipment.

It was very sensitive, able to detect change in a millisecond. My change detector was a warning system for me.  Change! Alarm! Beware!

But change is a constant – there is always change. I now make a conscious choice to embrace change.

I no longer need my own seismograph recorder.

Sumac Flags Flying

Celebration of Sumac © 2013 Bo Mackison

And that is something to celebrate.

Celebrate the present while looking forward to the possibilities of tomorrow. This photo, a close up of autumn’s orange sumac leaves, reminds me of prayer flags, gently waving in the breeze, celebrating the changing of the season.

~~~

D is for Dreams, Details, and Decisions.

Three

Dreaming © 2013 Bo Mackison

I dream in technicolor.

Dreaming is one of my favorite activities, be it night dreaming, lucid dreaming, or day dreaming. Dreaming lets me explore many options, turn them over in my mind, fiddle with the details. Visualize.

When autumn arrives in Wisconsin, it adds new colors to the gardens. I spend mornings walking garden paths, admiring the yellows and oranges. As an added bonus, I always delight in seeing the movable garden art.

I work in the garden surrounded by art and nature.

How inspiring to sit on one of the benches tucked in a quiet space, and journal or photograph the botanicals in the changing season.

CCC Picnic Area - Saguaro National Park

Desert Office © 2013 Bo Mackison

I work in the desert surrounded by art and nature, too.

The colors may be different. The desert’s greens and browns still inspire. And often I bring my work and settle in one of the covered shelters scattered throughout Saguaro National Park. These remarkable buildings, built in the 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), provide a shady place for me to set up a temporary desert office.

What a dream come true –  taking photographs, writing, and working in the desert.

~~~

Tomorrow’s post: Elephants to Highways.