JUNK BOAT TRAVELS: bucket list

Showing posts with label bucket list. Show all posts

10 October 2017

Chihuly Glasshouse and Gardens Part 1

September 2017 - Seattle WA

John decided we had to make a trip to Seattle while out west so that I we could visit the Chihuly Garden and Glass that opened after we visited Seattle.

I will split this into two posts, one inside the glasshouse and the other in the garden.

We had seen some of these pieces when he had a show in Toronto at the ROM last summer.

Chihuly Garden and Glass is an exhibit in the Seattle Center showcasing the studio glass of Dale Chihuly. The exhibit opened in 2012.
It replaced the Fun Forest that we remember from our visit to the Needle in 2008.

Fun Forest

This is so much more inviting than a bunch of rickety rides.

The project includes three primary components: the Garden, the Glasshouse, and the Interior Exhibits, with significant secondary spaces including a 90-seat café with additional outdoor dining, a 50-seat multi-use theater and lecture space, retail and lobby spaces, and extensive public site enhancements beyond the Garden.

In the first gallery, the neon-white slim stems of “Glass Forest” curl upward from their bubbles in a 1970s groove. Conceived while the artist was teaching in New York, it was groundbreaking for glass art. The work stretches indefinitely into the mirrors behind and beneath.

Then comes a room full of the Seaforms inspired by Puget Sound: seven Persians (large gold vessels sprouting giant glass kelp, octopi and crabs) surrounding a central aqua-indigo standing chandelier of twisted glass pieces, dotted with gold-dusted urchins and snails. Everything’s poised on mirrored black bases, with black walls to highlight the glowing iridescence of the glass.

Details on the above piece.

Then follows the long room of Mille Fiori, the glass garden of curvy red stems and tropical glass foliage first exhibited for the opening of Tacoma Art Museum’s new building in 2003.

I loved these pieces. The last indoor gallery hosts 19 Macchias, the wide-lipped shells “spotted” with glass shards and standing larger than life around the dark walls.

The installation inside of the Glasshouse is an expansive 100-foot long sculpture and is one of Chihuly’s largest suspended sculptures.

05 October 2017

Day 28 - Sudbury ON to HOME

October 2017

The final thing on this bucket list was the Giant Nickel in Sudbury. Not on John's, he had no idea what I was talking about. After some trial and error with the address we find it.

It was this foggy when we got up!

The Bridge of Nations

The Inco Superstack with a height of 380 metres (1,250 ft), is the tallest chimney in Canada and the Western hemisphere, and the second tallest freestanding chimney in the world after the GRES-2 Power Station in Kazakhstan. It is also the second tallest freestanding structure of any type in Canada, behind the CN Tower but ahead of First Canadian Place. It is the 40th tallest freestanding structure in the world. The Superstack is located on top of the largest nickel smelting operation in the world at Inco's Copper Cliff processing facility in the city of Greater Sudbury.

The Big Nickel is a nine-metre (30 ft) twelve sided replica of a 1951 Canadian nickel, located at the grounds of the Dynamic Earth science museum.

The idea for the Big Nickel began in 1963 when Ted Szilva, at the time a 28-year-old City of Sudbury fireman, read in the Sudbury Star of a contest, sponsored by the Sudbury Canada Centennial Committee (Maurice Lacourciere, Chairman), asking Sudbury residents how the City should celebrate the upcoming Canadian Centennial. Szilva put forward the suggestion for a major tourist attraction featuring a giant replica of a five-cent coin, an underground mine and a mining science centre. Szilva’s idea was rejected because the committee felt that "it did not have sufficient use for the citizens of Sudbury as such".

By this time, Szilva had independently researched his idea, and had concluded that it could indeed be a viable and worthwhile project. He began to make this dream a reality by scouting out the highest hills in Sudbury to find the best location. On December 11, 1963, he purchased 17.5 acres (7.1 ha) of land from Walter Holdich for $1,000.00 with a $25.00 down payment. The land was ideal because of its unique location between Sudbury and Copper Cliff. To the west, the large, rocky mountain provided a sensational view of the INCO mining and smelting complex.

After the land was acquired, the city refused to give Szilva the building permit for the monument, or a road allowance for access to the landlocked property, so he visited the president of INCO, John Pigott, and requested a lease for 4 acres (1.6 ha) of adjacent INCO land in Copper Cliff. This acquisition would ensure that Szilva would have access to his land. INCO did lease the requested land, for 99 years at $1.00 per year. Eventually he bought the leased land from INCO, in addition to another 15 acres (61,000 m2). Szilva contracted a firm to build the Big Nickel road, and Pioneer Construction paved the new road. The Big Nickel was eventually built on the crest of the hill, three feet outside of the city of Sudbury limits in Copper Cliff Ontario, which did not require a building permit.

And now the tourists flock to get photos, there were two tour buses already there when we arrived.

There was a huge pumpkin display outside the museum, which was closed which seemed odd to me. It turned out that it was closed for Halloween preparations and would reopen October 6.

Time to get home!

This is why it takes so long to get through northern Ontario!

Muskoka extends from Georgian Bay in the west, to the northern tip of Lake Couchiching in the south, to the western border of Algonquin Provincial Park in the east. Located approximately a two-hour car drive north of Toronto, Muskoka spans 6,475 km2 (2,500 sq mi). Muskoka has some 1,600 lakes, making it a popular cottaging destination.

The name of the municipality derives from a First Nations chief of the 1850s. Lake Muskoka was then the hunting grounds of a band led by Chief Yellowhead or Mesqua Ukie. He was revered by the government, who built a home for him in Orillia where he lived until his death at the age of 95.