There are a variety of holiday events taking place all over the Pacific Northwest in the coming weeks, providing a great opportunity to continue an old holiday tradition or start a new one with your friends and family. This winter the Chihuly Garden and Glass is returning with a holiday tradition of their own, the White Winter Tower with Golden Putti.
At 14 feet tall, the White Winter Tower is simply stunning. The tower is created from clear, frosted and white glass spikes, spirals and feathers that have been arranged to form an artistic Christmas tree. In addition, on every few branches are golden cherubs, which are known as “Putti” in Italian. The tower is then illuminated with lights, so it glows warmly. Fully assembled, the Winter White Tower appears as though it is one seamless piece, but in reality it is made up of many elements.
Every spike, spiral and feather is hand forged and each putti was individually sculpted and then attached to the blown feathers. The remaining pieces were then connected together with a series of poles and attachments. From start to finish, the entire creation process of the White Winter Tower with Golden Putti took Dale Chihuly and his team several weeks to create.
According to the Chihuly Garden and Glass, the White Winter Tower derives from the Venetian influence on Chihuly’s work and also features elements from the much loved Putti series that combined vessel forms with solid hot-glass figurative sculpture. The idea to create art including the mischievous angels evolved from an invitation to conduct a demonstration at Pilchuck Glass School with Italian Master Pino Signoretto. After working with Signoretto, Chihuly felt glass was an excellent medium for capturing the character of the putti and continued to use them in his Venetian and Ikebana collections. However, it is rare to spot putti in Chihuly’s towers, making this exhibit truly something special.
While you are at the Chihuly Garden and Glass, make sure to stop for a bite to eat at the Collections Café, which is an experience in itself. Named after Chihuly’s collections, the Café provides visitors an opportunity to view some of the objects that inspire Chihuly to create his beautiful artwork. A collection of accordions hangs from the ceiling and each table contains its own shadow box style display case, so you can look underneath the dishes and silverware on your table to view an assortment of objects. To make things more interesting, each table contains its own unique collection, whether it is film canisters, shaving brushes, wooden doll house furniture, glass juicers, clocks, cast iron dogs, ornaments, glass bottles and more.
The White Winter Tower will only be on display until January 1, 2016, so make sure to stop by this holiday season to see this wonderful exhibit in person, before it is gone for the year. In addition to the tower, every Sunday until December 20, 2015 Chihuly Garden and Glass will be offering special holiday programming, such as tours, art activities for kids and musical performances by local choirs that are great for the whole family.
Watch the video below to see the installation process of the Winter White Tower in action.
White Winter Tower with Golden Putti from Chihuly Garden and Glass on Vimeo.