Day 62: Tacoma Museums Day Two
Glass, Seaports, and a Bit of History
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| James Mongrain's homage to 19th Century Venetian Glass |
We headed back into downtown Tacoma today to take in the rest of the museums (well all except the Children's museum).
Our first stop was the Chihuly Bridge which crosses the highway and connects the main street in Tacoma (and the Washington State History Museum-- more on that later) to the boardwalk and the Tacoma Glass Museum.
The bridge contains three section of Chihuly glass-- an overhead scatter collection (where lots of individual pieces are arranged into a collage), two giant glass sculptures (pictured below), and a large wall with sections to display individual pieces.
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| Lisa on the Chihuly Glass Bridge |
We couldn't imagine a display like this in NYC (or even Seattle, where there are miscreants with a penchant for smashing glass) as the art would be stolen almost as soon as the sun went down. Presumably they are alarmed (we saw the security cameras), and the glass is bulletproof or otherwise smash-proofed, but still-- what an attractive nuisance. Pretty to look at though.
The Museum of Glass itself contained a working hot-shop where artists in residence work each year to complete pieces for the museum and the museum collection. There is an auditorium where you can watch the artists at work. You could also buy some of the pieces created in the museum gift shop-- which I did. I bought a small puffball (bird) Iittala Bird designed by Finnish designer, Oiva Toikka for the museum and created by the in-house glassblowers.
But that was the end of the exhibit-- let's return to the beginning. The main exhibition was "Complementary Contrasts: The Glass and Steel Sculptures of Albert Paley." These were truly extraordinary fusions of steel and glass (both blown and cast). Paley began early in his career by working with metal only, but progressed on to combining it with glass as both could be transformed via heat. You really need to see these in person, but the following were some of our favorites:
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| Albert Paley Sculpture with Bob for Scale |
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| Albert Paley Sculpture (the Buckeye example) |
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| Albert Paley Sculpture (Steel and Blown Glass) This one reminded us just a bit our neighbor Milton's work (he's a very talented glass artist too) |
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| Circular Logic (Albert Paley in collaboration with the Corning Museum of Glass) with Lisa, standing |
The other special exhibition at the museum was a combination of antique Venetian glass pieces and contemporary glass pieces created by artist James Mongrain in homage to the originals. Not only was the glass beautiful, but the museum lighting was spot-on (pun intended). I think Bob spent as much time inspecting the lights as the glass itself. However, he did take the time to admire the Hokie section of the exhibit.
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| Hokie Section of the Venetian Glass Exhibit |
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| 19th Century Venetian Glass (the inspiration) |
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| Cheese Guy |
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| Sockness Monster |
After the glass museum we decided to take a walk along the water over to the Foss Waterway Seaport museum, because it was a beautiful sunny day for a walk and because that museum was included in our Seattle Museum pass (and we had paid for it already). The walk took us along the Foss Waterway, which is now a fancy marina and used to be a major shipping port for Tacoma.
Along the way we walked under this old-style vertical lift bridge-- which raises straight up to allow ships through. It also has a glass elevator that takes people from the water to the main road in town. (No, we didn't take the elevator-- but Bob did get it in this picture.). The bridge is named the Murray Morgan Bridge (a.k.a the 11th Street bridge) and dates to 1913.
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| Old-Style Suspension Bridge in Tacoma |
As we walked we also saw Mount Rainier (which towers over everything everywhere in Tacoma when the fog lifts sufficiently).
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| Mount Rainier from the Foss Waterway |
The museum itself was housed in the last remaining piece of the historic Balfour Dock Building, which was once a busy grain warehouse.
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| Foss Waterway Seaport Museum |
The building itself was worth the visit, but the museum contained a bit of everything waterway related from trains to ships to whale bones. This eclectic sample of photos from the visit should give you an idea of the museum:
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| 200 Year Old 6 Pounder Canon (The museum placard called it the "Naval Insurance Gun") No close-up Cranes today, but the Canon made Bob's day. |
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| Fin Whale Skeleton |
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| A souvenir piece of the Kalakata Ferry greets Bob |
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| Collection of Steam Whistles |
Our final stop of the day was the Washington State History Museum. (We retraced our steps along the waterfront and back over the Chihuly Glass Bridge to this museum, as we had left M in their parking lot.) This museum too was rather eclectic and touched on many aspects of the State's history-- from the volcanoes, to ancient artifacts (from 13,0000 years ago) found locally, to union labor, to the Japanese internment camps near Seattle, to coal mining, to more model trains.
Some of this particularly appealed to Bob-- here he is touching the coalmine cart exhibit.
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| Bob Touches Coal |
However, he was soon disillusioned by what he called anti-coal propaganda when we ventured into the facsimile coal mine to find this depiction of a miner:
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| Anti-Coal Propaganda |
Though he was impressed by the collection of IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) Union Posters.
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| IWW Union Posters |
As we walked through the exhibit I recognized all the old union folk songs playing in the background. So, we left the museum humming.
Then we headed back to the house in Gig Harbor for the evening. Tomorrow we'll do a bit more exploring around town and do more laundry before taking off on Friday morning.
Time is sure flying! Only a couple more weeks to go on this Great Adventure.
--Lisa
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