Chihuly Garden and Glass

At the base of the Space Needle in Seattle is the Chihuly Garden and Glass.  The exhibit was built in 2012 and consists of a Garden, Glass House, Cafe and Exhibit building featuring the best glass works of Dale Chihuly.

Entrance to Chihuly Garden and Glass at the base of the Space Needle

When we first walked into the exhibition building we were greeted by a neon glass display titled "Forest". The room was dimly lit which allowed the neon to give an eerie glow and perfect introduction of what we were to see in the following rooms.

Forest (neon glow)

Next stop after the Forest is the Northwest Room which is a tribute to the Native culture of the Pacific Northwest.  Colorful native weavings hang on the whole wall at the end of the room.

A  thick long slab of polished sawmill lumber extends from the room entrance to the wall of weavings on the other side.  This piece of wood is the perfect object to represent the Northwest and is used to showcase several Chihuly forms.

A single Slab of beautiful Polished Wood runs through the center of the room used as a table for the glass work

Some of the artists early experiments with baskets and colors are in this room.

Glass Basket designs

detail of experiments with glass baskets

In the center of the next room we encounter a 15 foot tower representing the sea life in nearby Puget Sound.  The room is titled "Sealife" room and besides the centerpiece of the glass tower contains various glass representations of sea life.

Fifteen foot high tower of Puget Sound Sea Life

detail "Sea Life"

detail "Sea Life"

The Road to Albuquerque

Terrain becomes hilly

Driving to New Mexico results in yet another terrain change. The wide open flat grasslands are now more hilly. I have to love the fact that Exit 0 is the last exit in Texas.  Exit 0 ???

Exit 0 !!!

 New Mexico wins the prize for state welcome signs. As can be seen below, a large banner sign over the road proclaims that you're crossing into New Mexico.

Welcome to New Mexico

 We're in New Mexico, set the cruise control to 80, lay back and enjoy the ride.

Relax and enjoy the scenery at 75 MPH

Route 66 icons are everywhere in the Southwest. Shopping centers capitalize on their association with "the Mother Road". On any segment of the old Route 66 business is a mixed bag. Some diners and motels seem to be thriving while others are rapidly fading into oblivion with only deteriorating skeletal remains, reflecting an era of travel that has passed along with tail fins and whitewall ties.

The descent into Albuquerque is quite picturesque as the road winds and turns through the mountains.

New Mexico road bridges are some of the prettiest I have ever seen. Each one is decorated as a work of art.

I-25 interchange Painted Bridges in blue and pink

Bridge Ornamentation

Ornamentation

Artistic roadside landscaping

Once in Albuquerque I had some time to explore while I waited for Libbie's plane to arrive in the evening. I proceeded to Old Town Albuquerque to visit the New Mexico Museum of Art. It's a nice building, has lots of sculpture on the grounds but is lacking any major art inside.

NM Museum of Art entrance

The great news was a major art show was in the museum, "From Turner to Cezanne" art from the Davies Collection of the National Museum of Wales. This is a dazzling collection of art rarely seen outside of Europe.

 

The Davies sisters  were daughters of a Railroad baron in Wales, UK. From 1908-1923 they collected art in an attempt to enhance the cultural life of Wales. They managed to collect major pieces of art from most of the European impressionists. Works by Cezanne, Corot, Bonnard, Millet, Monet, Morisot, Manet, Pisarro, Renoir and van Gogh among others are on display in this collection valued at almost one billion dollars. Albuquerque Museum lacks the facilities to properly display this collection in my opinion. They did the best they could which was to basically hang the art on the walls of a large room the size of a gymnasium. That said, the art wasn't any less enjoyable.

My favorite was a large floor to ceiling Renoir painting, "The Parisienne". Beautiful! The blues were vibrant, the sheer size of the painting dominated and overwhelmed everything in the room. Renoir's parents were a tailor and a dressmaker. The detail in the dress of this painting probably reflects some of that upbringing. Even though this is an impressionistic painting, having been exhibited in the first impressionistic exhibition in 1874, the details in her face are very sharp and well defined. By making the face so clear in contrast to the nebulous nature of the background and dress, she stands out or "pops" to use a term from the current vernacular. Besides the size and color, this fact is probably what draws people into the artwork. A very sharply defined face staring at the viewer from amongst the hazy and patchy but bright colors of the rest of the painting grabs your attention. Of course, I'm somewhat prejudiced since Renoir is one of my favorites of all time.  This work just reaffirms his genius for me.

La Parisienne (1874), Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Outside the Museum of art is an incredible collection of sculpture. All the following are sculptures by Glenna Goodacre who is rapidly becoming my favorite sculptor. I keep crossing paths with her sculptures from the Regan library, Cowboy Museum and now at the Albuquerque Museum. 

Western Heritage Museum, OK City, Oklahoma

Entrance Gate

"Sundown" at the entrance of the Western Heritage Museum

The National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum is a large complex in Oklahoma City surrounded by well landscaped gardens and fountains. The buildings are huge,  housing incredibly larger than life sculptures and full recreations of early Western towns as well as a full rodeo.

Larger than life sculptures are one of the Hallmarks of this museum. "End of the Trail" by James Earl Fraser (1876-1953) is an 18 foot tall sculpture that humanizes the American Indian. Popular literature pictures the Indians as savages but here an Indian warrior is captured in a timeless pose, tired and defeated. The sculpture is one of the Museum keystone pieces, featured on all their literature.

 

End of the Trail

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Another of the very large pieces of art is this Abraham Lincoln sculpture by James Earle Fraser. At the turn of the 19th century, entrepreneurs were promoting a Lincoln Highway as a New York to San Francisco National Highway. The start of this highway is denoted by a large bronze monument of Abraham Lincoln. This is the plaster original for that bronze.

Abraham Lincoln by Fraser

A surprise treat was this Ronald Regan sculpture, "After the Ride" by Glenna Goodacre. We stumbled into artwork by Glenna later on this trip and when I googled her name, I found she was the sculptor for the Sacagawea dollar. I have seen this sculpture before, a casting of it is in the Ronald Regan Presidential Library.

After the Ride

The Western Heritage Museum has many full size recreations of cowboy life when the West was Wild. I didn't care too much for this aspect since it seemed such a large devotion of space to a questionable endeavor. Who needs a full scale replica of a Western town in air conditioned space? This is more the stuff of movie studios. My preference of course is for more Western Art in gallery exhibitions. Despite this, the recreations are astounding.

Recreated Western Town

I particularly liked this recreation of an old western photographers studio.

Photographers Studio

A peek into the auditorium revealed many large murals on the walls such as this one of Monument Valley.

Western Heritage Museum Auditorium

The highlight of the museum for me was the Prix de West, a juried invitational art show that takes place every year. The museum benefits greatly since they buy the winning artwork each year.  The galleries containing the paintings and sculptures of past Prix de West winners are incredibly nice. The museum has had a splendid opportunity to purchase works of art from well known artists before they were famous. The artist gains as well since the winning painting or sculpture can easily have a price tag of $100,000.  Unfortunately photography is not allowed in the Prix de West but LCD screens throughout the facility display an ongoing slide show of winners. I used that opportunity to photograph the winners as my memory of the show. The photo below is an  example of this.

One of my favorite sculptures did not win anything. I wrote down a description of the artwork, the artists name and the title of the piece. It stands about 12 inches high and was priced at $3,000. Once home I went a-googling and found not only the artist, Blair Buswell, but a photograph of his entry, "Reflection". The image I found online is below.

Reflection by Blair Buswell, a Prix de West entry

If you're there for the day, the museum features a very nice cafe with large expanses of glass over-viewing the fountain and water garden. This truly is an architecturally superb complex of buildings.

Cafe

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