Chihuly: Poet of Glass

"To me, poetry is somebody standing up, so to speak, and saying, with as little concealment as possible, what it is for him or her to be on earth at this moment."

~Galway Kinnell

We visited the Chihuly exhibit at the VMFA today. When I heard the above quote a few days ago, I thought it was only about the poetry of words. Today I realized that it it can be so much more. Dale Chihuly creates poetry out of colored glass.

 Each installation came with a story, told in the artist's own words. Boat was my favorite. Wanting to see if his glass creations would float, he began dropping them into a river. Local teenagers fished the floating pieces out of the water and filled their boats with them. Chihuly was inspired by their collections and began filling up his own boats.

 It took six weeks to install this exhibit. Each bit of glass is a separate entity pieced together by Chihuly's team to create the whole. They bring all sorts of extras to replace the inevitable broken pieces. It takes a fleet of large trucks and many, many boxes to bring his creations to life.

I've been trying all day to think of some way to tell you what it felt like for me to be in the presence of Chihuly's art. I kept getting the sensation of being filled.

Filled with light.

Filled with color.

Filled with the poetry of glass.