Took a little jog south to Tacoma for the day, we had tickets for the Museum of Glass. The Tacoma Link Train will drop you off in front of Union Station, aka U.S. Courthouse, aka "Gateway to Chihuly Land". There are a few large Chihuly installments in the courthouse, then you cross the Glass bridge over the freeway to the museum.
The Glass bridge is not made of glass, it's a covered footbridge and if you look up you see whatever light is available streaming thru a ton of glass art. It is quite beautiful!
after you go thru the bridge there are these large glass sculptures that remind me of sugar candy on a stick.
The large cone is the outside of the Jane Russell Hot Shop..
Inside the cone is where the action is, they have the Hot Shop set up like a theatre so you get a great view of all that is going on in here. They have a core group of people who make the glass pieces and have a stream of visiting artist to direct the art making.
the visiting artist was Armelle Bouchet O'Neill, she is the lady with the hat, she had a sketch that these guys were attempting to translate into a glass piece and you could tell it wasn't going as planned. I think it would be very frustrating to standby and have someone else create something that I had envisioned.
below the guy is blowing air into the hot glass to keep the bubble open, they stopped working on this piece after it seemed the artist was not seeing what she wanted to see.
work/lunch bench
The museum has a cool program called "Kids Design Glass", once a month they bring a childs drawing to life in glass
The Tacoma Art Museum is nearby and we caught the Norman Rockwell exhibit, can't take photos in this museum...
then up the stairs to The Swiss one of my favorite pubs
you gotta love a place that has bicyles and accordions on the walls
finished up the day with a short drive thru a damp Point Defiance Park.
