Mom and Aidan’s review:
This could possibly be the most redundant review I’ll ever do and believe me I’m gonna try to avoid saying “I loved it” repeatedly, but I can tell you the urge is already pretty overwhelming. I LOVED EVERY SECOND and EVERY INCH of this exhibit and thank you Dale Chihuly for such beautiful work.
One of the last days of the break before the kids go back to school and a trip to VMFA is just what we needed on a super cold day. I decided to just tell my children it was glass and leave it at that. Let them form their own opinions of what they were seeing. My 13 year old daughter took off with the camera and snapped as though there was a contest for quantity and my son, who has Autism, looked very matter-of-factly at the pieces. This is a true testament to the artist, because my son only saw what was being translated by inspiration. Nature, flowers, beauty and color.
buckets? to Aidan they were.
The first room hits you like a punch in the gut. WOW! Really?
There is so much color and beauty and the lighting enhances every color, hue, texture and blend of it. The placement and the display feels much like an amusement park for the eyes. As a very visual girl who loves glass and color, it was heaven for me. My son was interesting to watch. He saw fish in the Persian ceiling and jelly fish and mermaids and he asked “Is it wet up there?”. He saw buckets (for putting cold stuff in like coke…hint hint), candles, Christmas trees, lamps, bowling balls, crayons, disco balls, rocks, grass, and swimming. How could any of those pieces look like swimming you ask. Well, for him it all represented water on some level and to him, that’s swimming. When we looked at the woven pieces he saw towels on the wall. The soul capturing photography as the end was explained by my son as pictures of “hola como estas”. What does that mean? My son assumed they spoke spanish.
I love the way he sees diversity and it helps me see things differently too. They looked different to him, those people in the pictures, and all that meant was maybe they spoke a different language.
Unlike my son, I have very few words for the exhibit and they are: I LOVED IT! I want to live under the Persian ceiling. I want it in every room, everywhere I go for the rest of my life, but I can be demanding. My spirit is a little lighter for having been near all that beauty. If you don’t make it a mission to see this before it’s gone, then you have done yourself a true injustice. It is simply breathtaking. I won’t elaborate, because as I saw yesterday, the art is in the interpretation.
Ryan’s take:
If only the blown glass we saw on our Jamestown fieldtrip in fourth grade had been as interesting as the Chihuly exhibit. This was one of my very first thoughts as I entered the room with the two boats that had been filled with breathtaking blown glass artwork. The colorful balls of glass were so beautiful that I could only wonder what the rest of the exhibit would be like. Dale
Chihuly, the maker of these amazingly beautiful pieces of blown glass artwork, is probably one of my favorite arti
sts, because the exhibit was just simply amazing. I don’t think there was a single human who saw the works of art that was not instantly in love with it.
One of the greatest things about this exhibit is that it really is for everyone. While it is simple enough that even kids can enjoy it, there is also a part of it that’s very intricate and really makes you think. You can choose to simply look at it and enjoy the beauty, or you can think about how it was created, what the artist went through to create it, and how long it must have taken to create so much of something so beautiful.
When we visited the VMFA, there were tons of kids, teens, and adults that were enjoying the marvelous creations.
While there is absolutely nothing to dislike about the wonderful exhibit, I definitely had a favorite piece, The Persian Ceiling. An entire room is devoted to the ceiling, a beautiful collection of the many blown glass creations with light behind them so that you can really see the full beauty in the ceiling. The textures, colors, and designs in this room are just too much. All I wanted to do in that room was lay down and look. I took about as many pictures as you possibly can, and I still didn’t capture the true beauty of this room. A trip to see this exhibit will make your day, like it did mine, and you’ll definitely never forget how magnificent it was.
