Red Reeds at Twilight © 2014 Bo Mackison
After dark, the installations are illuminated , and offer a totally different viewing experience.
Illuminated Purple Reeds © 2014 Bo Mackison
Summer Sun by Chihuly, Night © 2014 Bo Mackison
Yellow Octopi in the Cacti © 2014 Bo Mackison
Blue Sapphire Star at Night © 2014 Bo Mackison
Blue Fiori Sun ©2014 Bo Mackison
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.
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 Amid the Desert Green © 2014 Bo Mackison
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.
Now I’m planning a return visit, determined to build more time into the visit for pure appreciation.
Blue Fiori Sun ©2014 Bo Mackison
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.
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.
Close Up Blue, Fiori Sun © 2014 Bo Mackison
[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 ©2014 Bo Mackison
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.
More Chihuly: The Night Show
Chihuly Cattails in the Desert Garden © 2104 Bo Mackison
I never met a color I didn’t like. ~ Dale Chihuly
This time focusing on these stunning red and orange cattails – swirling, curving, shimmering in the sunlight. The individual pieces are set amongst the succulents and desert trees .
Curving Cattails © 2104 Bo Mackison
[I want the glass] “to appear like it came from nature—so that if someone found it on a beach or in the forest, they might think it belonged there.” ~ Dale Chihuly
Red Cattails, Blue Agave
As an artist, Chihuly has always been a scavenger of images and ideas. He’s known for translating forms and patterns from nature and other media into glass: the designs of Native American blankets, the undulating shapes of sea creatures, the orbs of Japanese glass floats. ~ Sheila Farr, Seattle Times
The blue-green plants provide a stunning background for the brightly colored, complementary glass art. The color play is striking, and as the sun lowers in the sky, and first twilight, and finally dark appear, the gardens and art take on new expressions.
Chihuly Close Up © 2104 Bo Mackison
Though Chihuly no longer blows his own glass — he suffered a vision loss in an accident, and then a subsequent shoulder injury in the 1970s — he closely supervises his team of nearly 100 glass blowers. When one looks at the enormity of the show, it is understandable that one man could not produce all the blown glass pieces, though it is evident that Chihuly’s artistic vision is the cohesion in the show.
The exhibit is stunning placed amidst the desert habitations. It is a place I will visit repeatedly — the show is open daily through mid-May — and I’m sure to see a different perspective with every visit.
More Chihuly: Blue Fiori Sun
Chihuly’s Neodymium Reeds © 2014 Bo Mackison
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 © 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
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.
Black Niijima Float © 2014 Bo Mackison
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 © 2014 Bo Mackison
I loved how the globes captured the reflections of the adjacent purple reeds, the overhanging palo verde, and the cacti.
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.
Steeple against the Bluest of Skies
Before we left Phoenix for the trip to Tucson, we got off the Interstate for awhile and drove the streets in downtown Phoenix. I saw this church a few blocks away, and said the now famous phrase, “That would make a great photo…” I am getting so much better at accepting that it is OK to go back for photographs, and so we drove in circles a bit until we found the right streets and the church.
I thought I remembered that the church had written on the front, in huge letters, “First Historic Church”. That made me curious. I get the historic part, but I wondered how it could claim first in that category. It didn’t look that old. Then I went back in my photo archives and realized it said “Historic First Church,” so that made more sense. Amazing how a turn of words implies a different concept.
When I Googled “Historic First Church,” I discovered there are numerous church buildings that are historic and first – Brooklyn, Pasadena, Albany, and yes, Phoenix. But I gave up trying to find much information about the building in Phoenix after several more Google searches.
I did learn that this was the first Protestant church organized in the Arizona Territory and that it has served downtown Phoenix as the First Presbyterian Church since 1879, but I could find nothing about the building itself.
And on a side note, Arizona has the bluest skies I have ever seen.
