Today I got to go to the Art Museum to check out the progress on the Chihuly chandelier. I felt very VIP (I’m not, but it’s nice to think I could be!).
They (and by “they” I mean Team Chihuly – the guys and gals who have come all the way from Seattle to make sure it’s right!) have hung up the steel frame and have already started attaching the pieces of glass.
The steel frame sort of looks like a sea urchin with all the spikes sticking out. But that’s okay because no one will see it. Incidentally, it’s red. I wasn’t really sure what color I expected it to be (gray, maybe?), but I was pleasantly surprised to see that it is colored.
After the steel frame is hung, Team Chihuly starts attaching the pieces of glass. Did I mention that each individual piece of glass is hung One. At. A. Time?? So there are two guys from the team on lifts working bottom to top on the chandelier attaching each piece. The piece of glass has a little “bubble” on the end which has a wire wrapped around it and then that wire is wound around the steel frame. Easy enough, I guess. Of course, I couldn’t figure out how they knew which piece went where, but I’m going to assume they’ve got a map or something.
There are about 800 pieces to the chandelier. When I was there this afternoon, they had about a tenth of it done so far. And, fortunately, no pieces were dropped while I was there! Whew! I’m also guessing they have some back-up pieces. I can’t wait to see what sort of progress they make tomorrow!
Mary Douglass, Contemporaries member
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