Friday, 3 June 2016

Artistic City

One of Seattle's most immediate attractions is its artistic displays. In the city's centre are two in particular which we found entertaining and challenging, the 3.4 Ha. Olympic Sculpture Park close to the waterfront - and its off-shoot, the Neukom Vivarium; and the Chihuly Garden and Glass. All are fairly recent institutions, with the Sculpture exhibit dating from 2007, the Vivarium from 2006, and the Chihuly 'event' opening in 2012. They are also unusual in their subject matters and presentations. Let the pictures tell the stories.

The sculptures are all out in the open, multi-media (e.g. metal, wood, or concrete), have very variable subject matters, somewhat dispersed, sometimes embedded in vegetation, and accessed by winding paths. Several of them can be used practically as seats or in other ways. Let's take a stroll through the grounds:






Ella and Flynn used this exhibit as a play-ground.




And here they are wrestling!


Yes, this bench and the nearby box are exhibits.


This  coloured 'wall' stretches across a railway line.



 

And these two dudes must have been cold as they pose starkers! It wasn't a warm day.


 And so to the Vivarium. This somewhat peculiar exhibit occupies a small glasshouse and consists of a swan log from a Hemlock Tree that is used to grow various plant species of plant either from it or around it. The walls are adorned with a strip containing the names of prominent ecologists like Thoreau and images of particular flora or fauna typically found in forests. At least it's alive ... hence the term vivarium.







Finally let's walk a few blocks to Dale Chihuly's glass exhibits. This was absolutely stunning and I was totally unaware of this artist's international fame, staging stunning events in such places as Venice and Jerusalem. Our party of five, including two kids under five was blown away by the skill, colour, imagination and so on of exhibits made entirely of glass. It took us quite a long to ramble through the many exhibits amidst a large crowd of people.


















I'm sure you'll agree that these glass exhibits are just beautiful in all aspects of production: shape, colour, assemblage, settings and so on.

AS


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