oceancat11

Spent Saturday morning visiting the Dale Chihuly glass exhibit at the Rhode Island School of Design, which totally gets points in the actually-doing-something-you-said-you-were-going-to-do category. (I’d say “do-this-year category” but, of course, the exhibit has been at RISD since September and we just got to go to it the day before it’s set to close. On January 3rd. But we still went.) I don’t know enough about glassblowing to put together a cogent explanation of the show’s pros and cons, but I liked it. Many of the pieces reminded me of some fantastic undersea creatures, which I suppose is only fitting as, from what I understand, Chihuly created most of them specifically for the exhibition here in the Ocean State. I do have to say, however, that there were fewer pieces in it, and the colors more subtle, than I expected. It was kind of funny to stand and listen to the various interpretations of the exhibit. Some people may have actually known what they were talking about but for the most part it was hard to take anyone seriously. And then there was the guy we saw while waiting in line to buy our tickets, who showed up at the gallery wearing sweatpants. Not that you need to get dressed up or anything, but when I go out in public to, say, an art exhibit, I prefer to look like I haven’t just rolled out of bed, or come from my job at the transfer station. Only in Rhode Island. That may sound snotty of me, but I am the first person to accept the fact that there are a great many days when what I wear to work (at the farm) should only be worn to work and nowhere else. Although I guess I should just be glad he was AT an art show. Hell, for all I know he could be some artistic genius, in which case who cares what he wears. Maybe I’m just jealous I couldn’t pull that look off....

I think I like glassblowing so much because it’s one of the artistic disciplines that involve so much physical work. Like sculpture, and woodworking, and any sort of metal work, there’s a bit of a wrestling match that goes on between the material and the maker to get the desired result. It’s something I’d love to do if I ever got the realistic chance. Not sure I’d be any good at it, but I’d like to try it.

Some images from the weekend:






Beautiful stuff.



Another high point of the weekend? Going to a party Saturday night for my best friend from college’s dad, who spent 7/12 of 2008 in the hospital or hospital-type places to recover from some pulmonary-cardio-infection thing that had a lot of people stumped for a really long time. It sucked really badly, but because he is one of the most amazing people I know, he has an accompanying network of other really amazing people all over the world who were and are pulling for him, and, well, it worked. If you want some specific reasons to back up my previous post as to why I’m glad 2008 is behind us, you can put his coma at the top of the list. But now he’s home, they’re moving to NC this month (where their other daughter lives) to get away from shitty New England winters, and they’re retiring! It just knocks the cynicism right out of me to see so many people so warmly surrounding one single person, one single family, with so much care.