Looking glass

It's a misleading title, I do that from time to time; what would be more accurate is, looking at glass, because a few weeks ago that's exactly what I was doing...and in a really cool setting as well.

I can't recall the last time I used or looked through glass and said, "this glass is really cool", it's one of those things most of us use and take for granted but imagine life without it. We'd get bugs in our teeth when we drive our cars, wouldn't have mirrors, camera lenses, spectacles, windows, mobile phones and tech, tableware, specific medical equipment, packaging, fibre optic cables, air travel...the list is very long and life would be very different. But when did I ever say or think, "thanks glass, you're fucken awesome?" Never actually.

Ok, that's not altogether true either because a few weeks ago I went to the Adelaide Botanic Gardens for a wander around the Dale Chihuly exhibition of glass artworks and said, "fucking hell, this glass is cool."

Dale Chihuly is an American artist known near and far for his striking artworks which is represented in over 200 museum collections around the world and these particular glassworks have been displayed around the globe in such places as Singapore's Gardens by the Bay and London's Kew Gardens as well as across the United States of America...and now the Adelaide Botanic Gardens.

The artworks are lit at night and for $25 entry per person one can wander the gardens (also lit up) and marvel at the rather large glass artworks. I've not been at night (I'm time poor), but have been during the day and here's some pictures from that day.

I've not put all of the artworks into this post but you'll get the general idea I think.

With names like: The Sun, Lime Icicle Tower, Fiori Boat, Lima and Lava Tower, Float Boat and Niijima Floats, Sapphire Star, Ethereal Spring Persians and Glacier Ice and Lapis Chandelier and others, I guess one could expect something different and that's what Chihuly delivers.

I've used a couple of these images on posts in the last week or so and had a few questions on what they were so here's the answer.

I love nature and spending time in it; I don't have any need for human input to enjoy nature, other than my own of course because I'm there and I'm human, but the addition of Dale Chiuly's artwork was something different in a place I know well and I think complimented the gardens well, not enhanced, simply added something quite unique but still kind of natural in nature.