May 23 – Chrysler Museum of Art

Lots of glass pictures today.

It rained solidly all day so we needed to find something inside to do. The Chrysler Museum of Art in downtown Norfolk is on all the “Top x number of things to do in Norfolk” lists. Better yet, it has a massive glass collection and a glass studio where they give demonstrations. We love glass and are fascinated watching it being made.

There is only one demonstration a day, at noon. The studio is in a separate building from the museum. We arrived a bit early and for a while were the only ones there. Eventually the audience filled out.

We looked at some samples that had been made there and some charts about glass making. I had no idea certain sea sponges have glass skeletons.

 

The different chemicals used to colour the glass.

We sat and watched these guys working until the demo started.

One of them had a service dog that patiently waited.

There is a large conference of glass makers coming to town next week. The guys were making a project where they will do the final assembly at a talk at the conference. This lion head is what they are making.

Unfortunately there are also a lot of displays going on with the conference. Too bad we won’t be here. So close.

They said it would take about 9 hours for the team to make the head. He didn’t have very long at a time to work on it. He would only have about 20 seconds before it had to go back in the oven for about 10 seconds. Any longer outside and it might cool enough to crack.

The opening had so little clearance around the head that we cringed every time they put it in or out.

He used a lot of tools to shape the head. To push it out from the inside he used a long wire with a ball on the end.

An assistant would have to constantly keep heating the base as it was connected to the steel pole, causing it to cool faster.

When he wanted to work on a particular spot, he would heat it with a torch first.

 

On the outside he sometimes used a knife, a wooden stick, or wooden paddles.

They were still in the early stages so it never looked much like a lion head while we were there.

Another team member was making the making the many small pieces that would eventually be the mane.

During the demo they explained all the different types of glass making, such as blowing, casting, and etching. At one point this girl tried to blow and pop a balloon of glass. 

She ran out of air before it started to harden.

They smashed it and then showed us how flexible the thing pieces were.

After the demo was over we headed over the main museum building. As I said we were mainly interested in the huge glass collection and spent most of our time there.

Room and rooms of display cases.

Most of it I liked, some like these not so much.

Here are some of the pieces we really liked.

This display, made to look like bugs and jelly fish was great.

This one was nicknamed “Shrimp Girl”

We watched a video of this one being made. It is about a foot tall.

You didn’t want t get close to this one.

I think this was my favourite single piece. Even the shadow was beautiful.

One fun thing was this chess set.

The Catholics.

Against the Jews.

A baby getting circumcised.

A rook.

We finally found this glass dress that they had talked about in the demo.

Moving on, we were walking down a hall when we saw a dark curtain with some music playing behind it. In the room were three projectors displaying images on the walls and a glass shape being rocked back and forth with a light shining on it.

I don’t think many people see this. I would have walked right by but Jennie noticed it. Very cool.

We stood and watched the entire loop of the display.

The rest of the place had many rooms of the typical art museum stuff. Old and new, local and far away, sculptures and paintings. 

We looked but …

 

A pope from old TVs.

Jennie did a self portrait in this mirror piece.

And then home. It is still pouring rain but is supposed to stop by tomorrow. I hope so because I don’t have a lot of inside things on my list.