The Chronicles of Nicole: A Day with Mrs. Escobar 5-12-11

A few weeks ago I saw on Facebook that Mrs. Escobar was going to be visiting Tacoma, WA. I immediately contacted her to see if we could get together. She hadn't realized yet that we have moved to WA. We decided to get together and catch up!

The itinerary was as follows:

10:30am - Pick up Mrs. Escobar at her son's house in Tacoma
10:45am - Arrive ot the Tacoma Museum of Glass
12:15pm - Lunch at Grassi's Garden Cafe
1:45pm - Dessert at Hello, Cupcake
2:20pm - Head to Pike's Place Market in Seattle
(I also had planned to check out the Botanical Gardens in Wright Park but we ran out of time.)
5:30pm - Return to the house

Entering the Tacoma Museum of Glass

We started by watching the live glass blowing demo!

There was a gentleman narrating what the artists were doing as well as answering questions.

The room was very hot!

After that we were able to see the different indoor exhibits. The work was copyrighted so we were unable to take pictures. :(

MARTIN BLANK'S FLUENT STEPS - Fluent Steps is poetry in glass that celebrates the many moods of water, from the delicate wisps of mist that rise from a meadow at dawn to the crashing cascades of a waterfall. It spans the entire length of the 210-foot-long Main Plaza reflecting pool and rises from water level to fifteen feet in height and consists of 754 individually hand-sculpted pieces of glass mostly created in the Museum’s Hot Shop during Blank’s 45-day Visiting Artist residency in 2008.

MARTIN BLANK'S FLUENT STEPS

MARTIN BLANK'S FLUENT STEPS - Great sculpture is like music; all you have to do is feel it.
— Martin Blank

MARTIN BLANK'S FLUENT STEPS - The sculpture includes four individual islands of glass that interact with one another to portray Blank’s interpretation of water in its various forms. Cascades rises above the viewer to a height of 15 feet above the water like a surging waterfall. Echo languidly flows across the surface of the pool, creating an intimate dance of texture and reflective light. Crystal Skin, created by molding glass around a 20-foot madrona tree, quietly floats atop the water surface, and Wisps, a field of hundreds of small glass forms, breaches the surface like rising mist.

MARTIN BLANK'S FLUENT STEPS - The project required the invention of new tools to handle the massive amounts of glass and a team of 41 artists, architects, and engineers to create and install the work. For both Martin and the Museum, it was a marathon that demanded vast amounts of imagination, creativity, persistence and resourcefulness. The result is a magnificent sculpture that captures the fluidity, light, motion and transparency of water in clear glass. Ultimately, it is a work of art that is as imaginative and exuberant as Martin Blank himself.

MARTIN BLANK'S FLUENT STEPS - This monumental installation opened April 18, 2009 and is part of the Museum’s Permanent Collection of 20th- and 21st-century glass art.

CHIHULY BRIDGE OF GLASS - Seaform Pavilion
She was taking video; it was so beautiful!

CHIHULY BRIDGE OF GLASS - Three distinct installations comprise the Bridge of Glass. Furthest from the Museum is the Seaform Pavilion, a ceiling made of 2,364 objects from Chihuly's Seaform and Persian series. Placed on top of a fifty-by-twenty-foot plate-glass ceiling, the forms are suspended in midair and make dramatic use of natural light. As visitors walk under this pavilion, they experience a seemingly underwater world of glass shapes and forms a few feet above their heads.

CHIHULY BRIDGE OF GLASS - Seaform Pavilion

CHIHULY BRIDGE OF GLASS - The bridge is the gateway that welcomes people to Tacoma.
We wanted something unique in the world, something that
is full of color and offers a joyous experience to passersby

both night and day.
—Dale Chihuly

CHIHULY BRIDGE OF GLASS - A partnership between the Museum of Glass, legendary Studio Glass pioneer Dale Chihuly and the city of Tacoma resulted in the Chihuly Bridge of Glass, a 500-foot-long pedestrian overpass links the Museum to downtown Tacoma and its cultural corridor. Austin-based Arthur Andersson, architect of the Washington State History Museum, designed the bridge in close collaboration with Chihuly, who directed the artistic concept. The bridge provides a means for the internationally-renowned Chihuly to contribute in a very public way to his hometown.

CHIHULY BRIDGE OF GLASS

CHIHULY BRIDGE OF GLASS - At the approach to the Museum is the Venetian Wall, an eighty-foot installation displaying 109 sculptures from three of Chihuly's series: Venetians, Ikebana, and Putti. The Venetians are exuberant sculptures with origins in Venetian Art Deco glass. Ikebana are quiet pieces, created in the spirit of traditional Japanese floral arrangements. Putti were popular figures in European art of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and represent Cupid, the Roman god of love. The Venetian Wall is a collection of some of the largest blown-glass works executed in the history of the medium.

CHIHULY BRIDGE OF GLASS

CHIHULY BRIDGE OF GLASS - Marking the center of the bridge are the Crystal Towers, which rise forty feet above the bridge deck and serve as beacons of light for the bridge and city. Illuminated from below, the forms glow at night. The 63 large crystals in each tower are made from Polyvitro, a polyurethane material developed to withstand the elements. The Crystal Tower elements are raw, brutal forms, monumental and bold, that appear as if cut from mountain peaks or taken from frozen alpine lakes.