From Rosemary Ponnekanti, Tacoma News Tribune:
"It’s been 2-1/2 years in the making and three weeks in the installing. “Fluent Steps,” a giant glass installation in the reflecting pool on the main plaza outside Tacoma’s Museum of Glass, is finally in place.
After seven months of delay, the work will be officially unveiled Saturday at a VIP donor party. But you can see it today.
“‘Fluent Steps’ is a truly transformative work of art for the Museum of Glass,” said director Tim Close. “This project has united all three components of MOG – the hot shop, exhibitions and the permanent collection.”
The work was commissioned by the MOG after Blank, a Seattle glass artist, suggested the idea during a residency there in 2007. The museum has recently begun building its own collection, and “Fluent Steps” will be a permanent installation.
[...]
It’s the biggest work Blank has ever done, and it took a team of 41 glass artists, engineers and architects to create. Most of the glass was blown during residencies at the MOG’s hot shop last year, while being partly assembled in a Puyallup Avenue studio. The 71,000 pounds of molten glass were installed over the last three weeks, with the pool refilled last Wednesday. Though the installation was challenging, only one piece of glass was broken, Blank said Thursday.
Crinkled, flamelike, flowery or bubbled, Blank’s glass shapes cluster in four main sections like an archipelago. The largest, “Cascade,” rises up to 15 feet above the pool’s surface, and is given line and depth by occasional pieces of earth-toned glass, reflected in the smaller “Echo.”
The central “Log” extends about 20 feet, its sections of glass formed around a real madrona trunk to create realistic bark texture.
“Wisps,” at the far end of the pool, are curving ribbons of flamelike glass set low into the water. At night the work will be uplit with white light.
Blank’s inspiration for the work was the movement of wind on a lake.
“The glass just picks up on the change of light there, it amplifies it like a lens,” said Blank. “It’s a dialogue on the emotive nature of water. It’s about how water transcends and transforms you.”
[...]"
Excerpted From:
Ponnekanti, R. "Museum of Glass pools sparkle with glass again." April 17, 2009. website accessed June 2, 2009. http://www.thenewstribune.com/ae/artmuseums/story/712021.html
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