Chihuly does New York

Glassblower Dale Chihuly has done it again, with his installation of organic glass forms at the New York Botanic Garden. Chihuly showed his work at the Portland Museum of Art a couple of years ago, but glass objects on black tables at the museum looked disappointingly like jewels in a showroom case. They really shine at the NYBG, where the exhibit is on display until the end of October.
Among his most successful installations are suspended clusters of colored glass over pools of water. Both these photos are of the inverted reflections of works with the grace of flowering vines, the first being inside a glass house, the second outdoors.





Also stunning were his boats filled with glass floats in a pond next to the glass houses. The glass floats were inspired by floats used by Southeast Asian fisherman to hold their nets in the water, the installation in dories by the Finnish volunteers who helped Chihuly disassemble an installation in Finland by loading glass floats in their boats.