San Francisco, in typical big city fashion, has a number of museums. When Sarah was in town, we went to the SFMOMA and I got to see the art of Frida Kahlo which was incredible. It was really fun with Sarah because she, as the artist type, knew the back story of the artist, making the art that much more interesting.
Well, there was another exhibit I really wanted to see at another museum that didn’t seem to make it into the “tourist” weekend, so on Friday, I had some time to kill in the city before dinner (Erika and I went to Boulevard…which should get its own post, but probably won’t, as my sister says I’m “not allowed” to take pictures in uber nice restaurants), so I decided to head over to the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park to see Dale Chihuly’s temporary exhibit.
For those of you familiar with the Bellagio in Las Vegas, he is the artist who did all of the glass work on the ceilings. Amazing, but nothing compared to his chandeliers…holy cow! It was absolutely incredible. And sometimes it’s really nice to be at a museum on my own, so I can just sit and stare for as long as I want.
After I saw the exhibit, I watched a film about him that the museum had on a loop. Glass blowing is absolutely incredible. I would seriously love to see his team of glass blowers in person. I ended up buying the DVD because it was so amazing.
Here are some of my favorite pieces. (Sorry the pics aren’t great…low light, no tripod, not happy).
This last piece was for sale…$5000. Oh, to be rich. And totally without a conscience for what that money could do, besides purchase a piece of art. Maybe if I was rich enough to feed a 
And (I think) this one is permanent…this is a view from the observation deck of the museum.
existential dilemmas 
I LOVE Chihuly — we saw his stuff everywhere when we lived in Seattle.
i’m so glad you got to go to this!!! and bummed that i didn’t!!! so freakin’ cool! 🙂
I love love love that first picture! Fabulous! I hadn’t heard of this guy, but then as I scrolled down I thought some of his work looked suspiciously like the sculpture at Abravanel Hall. So I googled him, and yep, same artist. I didn’t realize he was the some one from the Bellagio, either. The display there is breathtaking.
I love Chihuly!! He is so great, his stuff is amazing! Not to mention the fact that Zack and I had our first date at one of his exhibits!!
Being he is from my neck of the woods, there is a lot of his artwork around. My fave is the glass museum where you can see the artists (although my Chihuly himself) blow the glass. So cool!
First came across Chihuly in a PBS special years ago….a fan ever since……brilliant !
Amazing! Did you get to see his exhibit at Abravanel Hall during the SL Olympics? It was breathtaking!
You have to check out the crazy glass blowing done by Russian artists for botanical students at Harvard:http://www.hmnh.harvard.edu/on_exhibit/the_glass_flowers.htmlCraziness
I love Chihuly; I wish that exhibit had been there when I was in SF.