This is an archival record of the Chihuly
in the Light of Jerusalem art project (1999-2001). The dispatches are
in reverse chronological order, with the most recent dispatch first.
Chihuly:
In the Light of Jerusalem
2000
At The Tower of David Museum
of the History of Jerusalem
Also known as the Citadel
Dispatches and images by William Warmus
These dispatches and images were delivered
"live" over the internet on or near the dates indicated
Flashes
from
Jerusalem
October 5,1999
Dale
Chihuly returned to Jerusalem to erect a Wall of Ice. See Jerusalem and Wall of
Ice on this site.
July 5
1999 Episode: A visit to ancient Petra
A visit to ancient Petra in Jordan made an impression on
Chihuly in the 1960s. I visited the site after the opening of the Chihuly installation:
for some images, click on the photo at right. Chihuly's love of stone surfaces, not to
mention his ambition to a monumental scale, probably owe something to the impact of this
fantastic place whose major monuments are carved from the living rock.
Now I better understand Chihuly's placement of the
sculptures in the Tower of David Museum: the fragile and highly colored glass is thrown
into high relief against the indestructible stone walls of the fortress, smoothly liquid
surfaces juxtaposed against roughly hewn rock for dramatic effect.
The ancient "Treasury" at Petra
July 2,
1999 Episode: The End, The Beginning
We had expected 1500 people at the opening last night: more than 2500
attended. Right is an image of the finished installation as it looked just before the
visitors began arriving.
Notice the Crystal Mountain at left (pink) with people beside it for scale; in
front of the Crystal Mountain, the Red Spears; in the right foreground, the White Ball
with Blue Feather Tower just behind it. The Turkish Minaret is at top center.
Immediately at right, a thumbnail of
another high resolution image, as seen from a high
perch behind the 47 foot tall Blue Feather Tower. It's a view of Shosh (Director of the
Tower of David), Dale and the Mayor of Jerusalem during the opening, surrounded by a few
of the 2500 guests. We were sad when the lights dimmed and the crowd dispersed, the team
returning to Seattle today. But as the museum reminds us, the exhibition is just
beginning, and Chihuly returns in the Autumn for more installation work (Who knows? Maybe
ice along the Dead Sea?).
Watch this space for an update and essay about the
Jerusalem 2000 project.
Chihuly before speaking at the opening
Overview of the completed installations.
Click to view high-resolution image
July 1 Episode: No Time for Melancholy
Just as I was having a conversation with Peter West about
feeling sad that we are all about to split up (most of the team leaves for Seattle Friday
morning), Mark McDonnell told me that the New York server for my web pages had crashed!
So, dear reader, there will be no dose of melancholy today. Instead, I spent my time
re-publishing my web site.
I did have time to include the first image of Dale,
Leslie and Jackson from inside the Crystal Mountain.
Left to right: Jackson,
Dale, Leslie inside the Crystal Mountain
June 27and
28 Episodes: White Tower and E-mail
Among the newest additions to the group of Chihuly
sculptures going up in Jerusalem is the White Tower, nicknamed by some the Medusa Tower.
The color is unusual for Chihuly: more opaque than most large scale installations, and a
close inspection (you'd of course have to be here to do that) reveals that the arms have
been engraved with oval cuts.
The main
Chihuly web site (www.chihuly.com) receives e-mail from viewers of (or visitors to)
its pages. One arrived recently and was forwarded to me in Jerusalem. I especially like
the final sentences.
I have been visiting this site for months now, ever since I saw a PBS
special on Chihuly. I am still amazed when I look upon the works displayed here. They are
simply beautiful. They are inspiring in ways that I can't even express to other people,
except to say that it makes me feel "full of life" just to gaze at them. I hope
to see his work in person one day. Just once would last a lifetime, I'm sure. But for now,
I'm just glad this site is here. I'm really nobody special, just one of a million people
on this world wide web. But if whoever reads this could pass my joy and thanks on to Dale
Chihuly, it would be greatly appreciated. Joy because that is just one of the emotions his
work stirs in me, and thanks just for bringing this into the world.
I tried to interest a friend of mine in this, and his response was, "What? It's just
glass.". "Yes" I said, "Isn't it amazing???".
Thank you for your time.
Laini Bree Richards
June 25
Episode: Rock Pigeons
A pair of Rock Pigeons has taken up a perch
in the Blue Feather Tower at about the second story level. What does that mean? It may
have no meaning--the meaning of Chihuly's work is itself a point of discussion among the
members of the team and those who write about the work.
I think the work resolutely has no meaning.
I was talking to Steven Cochran (he works on lighting and installation) about this earlier
today--he had been asked by a visitor about the meaning of one of the sculptures going up
and replied with words to the effect that "its the only thing around here that
doesn't have any meaning--it is a big, vibrant thing but it has no meaning." If
Chihuly is a member of the avant-garde (itself something of a rear-guard nowadays) it is
because he refuses symbolism in his work, resists statement, denies narrative.
This doesn't mean that Chihuly denies the
viewer the right to fantasy. The intoxicating beauty of some of the works, like the Red
Spears (see image below) may lead us to imagine ourselves in some ancient crusader castle
(Hey! we ARE in some ancient castle!!!), but that is our own personal fantasy. Meanwhile,
the artist is off elsewhere, exploring realms of sensation and experience in some remote
land beyond our dreams.
Two extremes of the project:
Industrial strength and Infinite delicacy: Mohammed arc welding
the armature of the Crystal Mountain, where each strut is capable of supporting the weight
of a person, versus the incredibly fragile glass edges of the 47 foot tall Blue Feather
Tower, which as we saw above can just support the weight of birds.
Citadel Layout
The little
schematic at right depicts the Citadel and the locations of a few of the major
installations, identified with my shorthand notations: The Ball, Mountain (or Crystal
Mountain), Tower (or Feather Tower) and the Red Spears (Moved by Dale to their new
location leading towards the Crystal Mountain). The Tower is inside the walls; the Ball is
on the terrace below the word Ball. The 17th century Turkish minaret, visible in many
photos, is also identified, as is the Jaffa gate. Their are other installations such as
the floats in the pits that won't fit on my schematic.
The Jaffa gate area is where all the
action is: traffic enters the wall here, and it is where we take breaks for Turkish coffee
or fresh squeezed orange juice or to head back to the hotel. Just beyond the gate (upper
left black area) is the entrance to the amazing labyrinth of streets that form the market
of the city and that lead into and open out onto the Western wall, Dome of the Rock, and
Church of the Holy Sepulcher.
Remaining episodes are preserved just
below in their original format--just scroll down.....
Thursday June 24 Episode: The Mayor
Teddy Kollek, past Mayor of Jerusalem,
visits.
He is pointing at the Crystal Mountain as
Chihuly makes a drawing
Wednesday June 23 Episode
Red Spears!
Tuesday June 22 Episode
The Jerusalem warehouse
containing the empty boxes and crates, and maybe some glass, burned down today. Sorry--I
don't have a digital image or any other information.
Monday June 21 Episode
Reflections on the Work and on a saying
by Rabbi Tarphon: 8 PM Monday
I think that today is both the longest day
of the year and the mid-point of the team's work on the project. Jerusalem is very hot and
even brighter, and there has been a curious lull in the work, as we wait for an essential
but very late container shipment to arrive and as Chihuly ponders what to do next, how to
approach certain problems. One big problem.
Will there be enough chunks of acrylic (the
pink crystals) to cover all the wedges of the Mountain to sufficient depth? This is
a major concern, both because the chunks are really expensive just as pure material (about
$100-$300 each) and because, anyway, it is too late to make more--we have "just"
1200 of them. That means 120 per wedge.What to do if the result seems meager?
So I go back to my room and glance at the
Cornell graduation address that has been tucked away in a drawer. Given by the literary
critic Harold Bloom, it is a meditation on a saying by Rabbi Tarphon and I brought it with
me because it bears on our project here in Jerusalem:
"It is not necessary for you to
complete the work,
but neither are you free to desist from
it."
The project here is overwhelming, and as
Bloom comments, "If it were necessary for any among us to complete the work, then we
might break off in despair, because the work can never be completed." Combining the
words of Tarphon and Bloom tonight in Jerusalem, I realize that it is the team that
saves us from despair, because alone we can never complete the work.
And in fact by 4PM today, the team did just
that: following Chihuly's suggestion, they formed a human chain of crystal haulers and
filled in the three wedges, and Yes! The density works....the Mountain will indeed signal
crystal and not appear hollow. Now, of course the new worry is about the crowds it may
attract at the end of the Millennium....
Chihuly pondering the problem; the team taking action
Three wedges complete: With nine more, we think the density will
work
Mountain and Tower Episodes:
June 16 and 17
Crystals conquer the Mountain! Wednesday
afternoon at 5 PM. The images above give some sense of the scale of the Crystal Mountain.
The short rods are welded at odd angles to receive the chunks of crystalline material. The
team is populating one wedge with crystals so Dale can take a look and decide what to do
next. There are 12 such "wedges" or sides to the Mountain, which is 33 feet
tall. Below, Dale looking, the Mountain in his eye.
The major event of the day was the removal
of the scaffolding from the Blue Feather Tower: 48 feet tall, 2000 pieces of glass (for
the year 2000?), it descends 20 feet into the archeological substructure of the Citadel,
its base surrounded by stone shot launched by siege machines against the fortress.
I have a pronounced fear of heights, but I
went up on the hydraulic lift to make the photo at right of John Landon, putting the
finishing touches on the top of the tower. John (Dale's friend from the founding days of
the Pilchuck school and before) has been providing project and installation direction in
Jerusalem for the Blue Tower.
Tuesday June 15 Episode
With the Chihuly crew at the Tomb of the Holy
Sepulcher. A mass of visitors squeezes to ascend the steep and narrow stairway that leads
up to Golgotha, the "place of the skull" (Mark 15): Calvary.
They say here that everywhere else you die
and decay but that in Jerusalem you die and mingle. To experience what this means, visit
immediately upon arrival the Tomb of the Holy Sepulcher.
The artwork of Chihuly is set into the
fabulous context of the Tower of David museum with its gigantic Herodian tower. It
respects the location--indeed, the installations have been placed with great care for the
archaeological context-- but it can not avoid mingling within the vast religious,
political and historical labyrinth of this ancient city.
Monday June 14 Episode
The team is immersed in preparing the structures that will receive
the glass, such as the massive Crystal Mountain, shown in detail above with welder (you
can just see Philip Stewart, who coordinated the manufacture of the armatures with the
fabricator Zion Nachmani in Jerusalem, in the image at lower right).
Image below: They tell me this is "technical rigging." I
call it Robin Coomer rappelling down the exterior wall of the Citadel in order to attach a
bracket that will receive glass. There are maybe fifty such brackets for the walls.
Friday June 11 Episode
I just arrived! Give me time to connect from my hotel room (the
Knight's Palace) and take some photos! I have to connect a power converter, telephone
adapter, surge suppressor, load the Ipass account---you get the idea....O.K. I'll give you
one photo: the first thing I saw upon arriving at the Citadel, about 10:30 AM Friday:
Parks Anderson and the crew lowering a box full of glass into an archaeological pit.
Notice that the box is going INTO the pit: a reversal of traditional archaeology where the
day's finds are lifted OUT.
Hit the buttons below to read past
dispatches or a general overview