Glass Art in Richmond

These are called Macchia. They look like giant, variegated flowers.

Boats filled with blown glass, and globes that float.

WARNING: THIS STORY IS JUST AN EXCUSE TO POST SOME COOL PICTURES

Chad and I drove to Richmond Tuesday night to see the exhibit of glass art by Dale Chihuly. We fell into thick traffic as soon as we crossed the bay, and a 6-mile back-up at the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel. So, rather than wait in a nail-biting line, we bailed out and ate a leisurely meal at Nara Sushi, our favorite across-the-bay restaurant. Good stuff. I drank a large sake, which probably wasn't a great idea. But it seemed appropriate at the time. Gridlock! Ugh.

Finally the traffic cleared and we flew up the highway to Richmond. We stayed with Chad's brother, Landon, whose wife is a docent at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. As a volunteer and member, she was able to get us free tickets to the Chihuly exhibit.

A small part of the Persian ceiling.

Chad blew through it in 5 minutes, clearly uninterested, and headed up to the Asian Art section. But I was captivated. Glass in all its forms fascinates me. Although Chihuly has shown his work in Tidewater, I wasn't able to see it then. So for me, the Richmond display was a "can't miss" opportunity.

Entering the exhibit, you encounter two boats filled with blown glass on a black, reflective riser. Intense light on the brightly colored glass made the tendrils vibrate like living things in the darkness. Stunning. As good as it gets in the basement of an urban building. But I would have liked to see them floating in a lake, as they were shown in a video at the end of the exhibit.

Then visitors walked beneath the "Persian" ceiling--clear glass above your head, layered with 1,000 pieces of blown glass. I felt like I was under some very crowded water. Every square inch was different from the next. Just moving all these pieces to the museum must have been a monumental job.

A wall of Navajo blankets lined the next room, and the glass bowls there were inspired by Native American baskets. Beige. Subtle. Gorgeous and very different from the rest of his work.

The biggest room housed a huge collage called the Torcello Lagoon. I don't know how many hundreds of different objects were used to make the piece, but it looked like a jumble to me. If you spent lots of time looking at the smaller groupings or individual pieces of glass, there were some beautiful pieces. But I didn't think it held together as a whole--no big picture, just a lot of little scenes crammed next to each other. I'm sure Chihuly fans will wail disapproval of this critique. But the Lagoon felt more like a crowd scene than an underwater garden.

Finally, Richmond's exhibit displayed a room filled with tall blue glass reeds embedded in driftwood. In contrast to the Lagoon, it was peaceful. Calm. Refreshingly un-jiggly. My sister-in-law didn't like the reeds, but I thought they were awesome.

So...what would I give to work with molten glass and make stupendous stuff like this? Another lifetime. Not an arm and a leg, though, because then I wouldn't be able to manipulate the "metal" (as molten glass is called). Chihuly himself did very little of the actual glass blowing. He had a large team to help, since he lost one eye and injured his shoulder.

He's a pretty funny looking guy. Stocky, with curly grey hair and a black eye patch. The museum is selling some of his work, and the docents say the VMFA wants to beat the number sold in Boston--seven, at more than $7,000 each. I hope they reach their goal. I like to think of a team of glass artists making money. It has a wishful feel.