sculpture | MEMETERIA by Thomas May

December 29, 2013 • 11:35 am Comments Off on Alignments

Alignments

Black Sun; Isamu Noguchi (1969); photo by Thomas May

Just a little after the solstice, while taking a walk, I chanced upon this image of the setting sun fitting into the “donut hole” of Isamu Noguchi’s Black Sun, a granite sculpture in Seattle’s Volunteer Park.

For a moment, it felt as if I were encountering an ancient ritual site, designed with astonishing precision, to map out the link between our world and the cosmos. A last flicker of light before the sun was swallowed by the horizon.

Filed under: photography, sculpture

August 15, 2013 • 11:16 pm Comments Off on In a Bright Garden of Glass

In a Bright Garden of Glass

Taking a walk just before dusk, I was lured by a beautiful oversize
flower stalk outside the Volunteer Park Conservatory.

Turns out I had chanced upon the Botanica Exotica show series –
an exhibit of the glass art of Jason Gamrath.
He’s from Mercer Island and an alumnus of Dale Chihuly’s
Pilchuck Glass School.

Displayed amid the Conservatory’s remarkable collection
of exotic orchids and other flowers,
Gamrath’s giant flowers posed a mesmerizing enigma:
hybrids of realistic imitation and over-the-top fantasy,
fragile yet unbending.