By Ann Nichols
annsnichols@aol.com
Cheekwood Botanical Garden & Museum of Art, Frist Center for the Visual Arts and Schermerhorn Symphony Center have collaborated to create one of the most spectacular art events ever held in Nashville.
These three venues will be transformed into a wonderland of color, light and form by Dale Chihuly, world-renowned glass artist.
Chihuly, a native and resident of Washington, has been working with glass since 1965. It was during a trip to the island of Murano, Italy, three years later, however, that he was inspired to adopt the European model of team glass-blowing and incorporate it as a part of the studio glass movement in America. Still in its infancy, the studio glass movement was transforming not only the function of glass, but pushing this centuries-old medium to new heights. Chihuly co-founded the Pilchuck Glass School near Stanwood, Wash., where innovation and the avant-garde in glass blowing was encouraged.
Throughout his 45-year career, Chihuly has continued to try to top each previous body of work. Not content to construct individual objects, he began creating large-scale sculptures composed of hundreds and even thousands of individual blown-glass pieces.
By the 1990s, he began placing glass objects in boats to float on ponds, arranging hundreds of his “Persians” on a wall or above a glass ceiling, suspending chandeliers over canals in Venice, Italy, and constructing bridges of glass.
Here is a bit of what can be seen during “Chihuly in Nashville.”
* Frist Center for the Visual Arts — Through Jan. 2, 2011, visitors can see nine installations that draw upon Chihuly’s most acclaimed bodies of work so far — “Venetians,” “Ikebanas,” “Persians,” “Macchias” and “Seaforms.” Also, a “Mille Fiori” garden of 1000 flowers and a mammoth ten-foot tall tower that fills an entire gallery are on display. Several of Chihuly’s drawings, which serve as guidance for his glass-blowing team, round out the Frist exhibit.
The Frist, 919 Broadway, is open 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Monday-Wednesday and Saturday; 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Thursday and Friday; and 1-5:30 p.m. Sunday (all times Central). Admission is $10 adults, $7 seniors/military/college students with identification and free for visitors 18 and under. Call 615-244-3340.
* Cheekwood Botanical Garden & Museum of Art — From May 25 through Oct. 31, the grounds and the museum will be transformed into a showcase for some of Chihuly’s most stunning creations, A forest of “Macchias” (vibrantly colored, curved vases on pedestals), “Saffron Tower” (30-foot tall sculpture made of neon-yellow glass objects), a group of “Walla Wallas” (blown forms floating in water gardens), “The Sun” (15-foot yellow orb on the front lawn of the museum), and “Cattails” and Reeds” emerging from the ground.
In the grotto underneath the museum will be a group of “Silvered Purple Herons” and “Cobalt Eelgrass” — both being debuted for the first time. On the loggia, a group of massive chandeliers will be installed.
Cheekwood, 1200 Forest Park Drive, is open 9:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday (all times Central). Tickets will be sold at Botanic Hall. Admission is $15 adults, $12 seniors/college students and $8 children 6-17. Call 615-356-8000.
* Schermerhorn Symphony Center — On the evenings of May 20, 21 and 22, the Nashville Symphony will perform Bela Bartok’s “Bluebeard’s Castle” against a set designed by Chihuly. Six individual 14-foot sculptures representing castle doors, will be revealed during the course of the performance. For information and to purchase tickets, call 615-687-6400 or visit www.nashvillesymphony.org.