CONSERVATORY

The child and I really needed to "escape" from the idea of the flood and all of its attendant trappings—packing, moving, evacuating, moving back, unpacking, viewing acres of mud and torrential water. So we headed off to the W.W. Seymour Botanical Conservatory to wander among Chihuly glass curated to complement the botanical displays.







This exhibit was much in the same vein as Skyponds in summer of 2008. Instead of floating above the plants, however, these glass forms substituted for them, almost as though fragile and polished flora. The artificiality of their material (for the locale) and their incorporation into its milieu forced Troy's Work Table to ask interesting questions concerning what is natural, what is the role of organic shapes and how do they function in artwork, and how much "control" do we really have over our environment (which seemed appropriate considering manipulations and attempted "control" of the Puyallup, Carbon, and White Rivers; their courses; their waters; and their flood plains)?

It was still nice to escape for a while, amongst the flowers and greenery, real and otherwise.