Does art make you cry?

[mynewplace]

Well, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. We all know that's true, almost pointless to say it. But since we are all trying to connect, especially here, trying to let one another see into ourselves, then I decided that I was going to dedicate at least one journal entry to something that I find so beautiful it makes me want to cry. This man's art takes that gaping hole in my chest and causes it to expand until my heart is larger than my entire world.

http://www.chihuly.com/

(I am trying to insert a link here to his web page, I hope its working.)

This man is Dale Chihuly. He is a glass blower extrodinaire. His visions of glass are beyond the pale, so huge and sweeping and bursting with color and movement and light that it almost hurts to look, and yet you can't look away. And I don't mean that in a 'train wreck' sort of way, either. Oh, I suppose some people might not like his stuff, but frankly, that would so blow my mind that I'm probably better off not knowing those people. Or at least better off not knowing they feel that way - cause then I'd have to try to understand, thereby causing my brain to explode. Here are some of my favorite pieces from a few years ago.

This chandelier was hung in Naples, Italy. The chandeliers he made for Naples and Venice were what originally caught my attention and made me a fan.

This is one of the chandeliers in Venice.

I can't remember where this one was hung. When I saw the first special about his work on television, it showed his workers blowing the pieces, then hanging them individually. There were a multitude of ways it could be hung, there were rarely specific pieces for a specific place in the sculpture. Many of the chandeliers he created for Venice were hung from bridges over the waterways. There was this one that I will always remember, although I don't have a photo, that wast tied to the end of a dock. The gentle clinking sound it made as the waves lapped around it was positively hypnotizing. There are few things that relax me the way water does. The beauty of blown glass also mesmerizes me. Glass blowing is a traditional art in West Virginia, and we are well known world wide for the quality of our glass, both blown and in other forms as well. There are few people who have even passing knowledge of glass as a collectible that don't recognize the names Fostoria and Blenko, and Homer Laughlin Fiestaware. All of that is made here in West Virginia. In fact, I have family members who are glass blowers. Its one of the things that makes me "West Virginia proud."

Comments

[nemecic.livejournal.com]

Stunning!

[sapphirescarlet.livejournal.com]

aw - thanks. *fluffy redheaded glomps!*