One of Chihuly's repeated themes is brightly colored spheres in and around a small boat. This one is located in the Japanese garden area. It raises questions. Is it simply a static display or is going somewhere? What is the nature of the cargo? Why have some spheres spilled out? As with so much of art, these questions are up to the viewer.
Our botanical garden has a large geodesic dome called the Climatron. Ingenious interior landscaping and air systems divide the area into four climactic zones. This group is called, I think, Ikebana, after Japanese flower art. It looks to me like it's in a lush tropical garden in, say, Hawaii.
Installations by the glass artist, Dale Chihuly, are ever-popular in this country. A big display opened recently in our botanical garden. There are nineteen pieces, large and small, indoors and out. This one is called Summer Sun. The garden is open some evenings and it was packed last night. More to come.
More weirdness at the City Museum. Beneath the bubble tower on the roof of the building seen yesterday, a fiberglass elephant rears at the sky. There are also some small hippos nearby, wallowing in artificial turf. Just because.
Still on the roof of the City Museum. Note the spiral staircase up the center of this unusual tower and the red signal light on the top. Helicopters occasionally buzz through the area. Note also the school bus on the left. The front half is hanging off the the corner of the building - well-secured but a little scary.
The City Museum has some water features. You can see a tank on the upper right, part of an odd-ball aquarium (almost everything in the City Museum is odd-ball). I don't know if this water tank and huge chain are left over from the building's original use as a shoe factory and warehouse. St. Louis was the shoe-making capital of America before it all went offshore.
Some of the railings in the City Museum are made of old industrial rollers, the type of thing that might carry boxes down hill. The building used to be a shoe factory and warehouse so I assume they came with the property.
