Seattle - Chihuly Garden and Glass

The Chihuly Garden and Glass is always an amazing place to visit. The variety of colours and shapes, imagination and the amount of time and effort that goes into creating these art pieces is truly mind boggling.

Ironically, this first photo that I share is of a piece that is all white! But is very suitably named. 

"Winter Brilliance"

"Sealife Tower"
"...takes inspiration from the sea and Puget Sound ... includes forms such as starfish, octopus, conch shells, sea anemones, urchins and manta rays."

"Persian Ceiling"
Suspended above, this work covered the ceiling over the length of a small room.

"Niijima Floats"
"... inspired by the artist's trip to the Japanese island of Niijima and by childhood memories of discovering Japanese fishing net floats along the beaches of Puget Sound."

"Ikebana Boat"
"... features long, flower-like glass stems inspired by the Japanese art of ikebana."

"Macchia Forest"
"Chihuly began the Macchia series in 1981 with the desire to use all 300 colors available to him in the hotshop ..."

The Glasshouse Sculpture is 100 feet long!
(See video below.)

There were also lots of beautiful outdoor exhibits. 

Andrew and I with the Seattle Tower.

Seattle - Olympic Sculpture Park

Finally getting back to a few photos from our trip to Seattle!

The Olympic Sculpture Park (free, outdoors, and just a few blocks from where we were staying) is operated by the Seattle Art Museum. 

"Father and Son"
At the time, I didn't even notice the "son" in the smaller fountain but there's a photo of it in the above link. 

"The Eye Benches"
Seating is on the other side. 

"The Ampersand"

"The Eagle"
It look so different from every angle but I think the above looks most like an eagle.

A cute fellow visitor to the park.

"Echo"
"Jaume Plensa's sculpture Echo is named for the mountain nymph of Greek mythology who offended the goddess Hera -- she kept her engaged in conversation and prevented her from spying on one of Zeus' amours. To punish Echo, Hera deprived the nymph of speech, except for the ability to repeat the last words spoken by another. The sculptor created this monumental head of Echo with her eyes closed, seemingly listening or in a state of meditation."

Seattle - Aquarium

Andrew and I took a mini vacation last week and headed down to Seattle for a couple of days. We took the Victoria Clipper which is a passenger ferry that runs between Victoria and Seattle and offers ferry/hotel combination deals. 

We left late afternoon and took a water taxi to downtown so it was an easy walk to the ferry terminal. 

A 2 3/4 hour ferry ride later, over quite rough waters across the Juan de Fuca Strait, we arrived in Seattle and it was a short walk to our hotel for the night. 

We love aquariums so this was our first stop on Day 1. Although we've been there several times before, it's been a few years, there's always lots of interesting things to see. 

In addition to photos, it's fun to watch the movement of undersea life. 

There were also a few birds in the outside areas.  :-) 

 

Victoria Butterfly Garden

A couple weeks ago, Andrew, Clare and I went to the Victoria Butterfly Gardens. We've been meaning to go for ages but wanted to go on a weekend when it wasn't too busy. Clare also checked ahead to see if any school groups would be there and there weren't. Very nice! 

Not only are there beautiful butterflies but lots of birds and various other creatures. 

See the butterfly on the back of the flamingo?
Gone a second later as the flamingo turned his head, reached down and . . . gulp!

Many much better and beautiful photos by Andrew in his blog post.