I am testing my blog by phone feature

If this works, I will be happy. Blogger lets me phone in blog posts and this is my first attempt to do so.

A backstage tour of St. Petersburg's Chihuly Collection

The Chihuly Collection in St. Petersburg opens officially today and I was fortunate to attend a preview for the press yesterday. Chihuly himself was scheduled to lead the press tour but unfortunately, his health prevented him from being there. In his place, the tour was lead by Chihuly's friend and project architect Alberto Alfonso.

The Chihuly Collection in St. Petersburg is presented by The Morean Arts Center and it's the world's first permanent Chihuly installation, and Alfonso's brilliantly, thoughtfully designed space reflects the fact that this collection is here for keeps. The facility and the art interact perfectly and the impact of both is magnified exponentially.

Chihuly's best known for his work in glass, but he works on paper and neon as well. There are installations in all three of his media in the collection and the combination of the three in one space fleshes out he vision and talent of an artist who practically invented the studio glass movement.

Because I attended a press preview, the collection staff hadn't erected all of the barriers and velvet ropes that will protect Chihuly's work when the public are welcomed in today. I was granted a once in a lifetime opportunity to see this work close up, barrier-free. It bordered on the unsettling to walk around ten feet tall, suspended chandeliers with a value I'd be afraid to calculate. What a thrill!

The collection starts in the street with a Chihuly sculpture that pays homage to the iconic tower of The Vinoy Hotel in  the background.

In no real order, here are some of the works on display.

St. Petersburg's Chihuly Collection opens today and you can find out about operating hours, ticket prices and information about how to get here and where to stay on The Chihuly Collection's website.

Dale Chihuly sets up shop down the street

All photos of the 2004 Chihuly exhibit at the 

Fine Arts Museum in St. Petersburg, FL from Dale Chihuly.

In 2004, glass artist Dale Chihuly brought a huge exhibition to St. Petersburg's Museum of Fine Arts. Unlike most of the visiting exhibits in that museum, Chihuly's work wasn't contained in a single gallery. Instead, his work was integrated into the rest of the museum and seeing his fantastical glass work in the context of other art forms allowed me to see it as art for the first time.

On its own, blown glass as art never spoke to me before. I found the graceful shapes and bright colors to be distracting, I couldn't see the artist through the work. It didn't dampen my appreciation for it as a beautiful thing, but I saw it differently than I do a compelling painting or sculpture. However, seeing a pile of Chihuly's orange glass sitting next to a Georgia O'Keefe poppy brought the whole endeavor into sharp focus for me.

Chihuly's work is studied and it does fit into the long, glorious narrative of art history. Chihuly's work above pays respectful homage to the Georgia O'Keefe behind it, but it lacks the morbid and menacing core of the O'Keefe painting. Chihuly is pure exuberance at this point.

A lot of art critics tend to keep his work at arms length, probably because blown glass is such an accessible medium. Blown glass can be beauty for beauty's sake and it's that same beauty for beauty's sake that endears his work to so many non-art patrons. Say what you will, but the man is everywhere and it's due to his efforts that American art glass is an art form reborn. Chuck Boux (a local glass artist whose work I own) and every other working glass artist out there owes their career viability to Dale Chihuly.

So it's with a great deal of fanfare that St. Petersburg's Morean Art Center is opening the Dale Chihuly collection this weekend. The Dale Chihuly collection is the world's only permanently housed Dale Chihuly collection, it's a single artist museum for all intents and purposes. Part of the collection is a working Chihuly glass studio and hot shop. At the hot shop, regular people can see fine art glass being made before their eyes and people who want a bit more intense experience can take a glass blowing class.

The new Chihuly Collection is housed in a space designed by architect Alberto Alfonso and as luck would have it, I've been invited to the press preview later today. I'll meet the architect and get a guided tour of the collection led by Chihuly himself. He'll have a Q&A after the tour and if I think of something pithy I'll ask it.

I'm looking forward to this preview of the latest addition to the art scene here in the 'burg. I'm fortunate to live in a small city of 250,000 people and to be surrounded by such an embarrassment of cultural riches. Dale Chihuly has a new museum five blocks down the street from me. How many people can say that?

If you're local to me or if you find yourself on the coast of west Florida, check out the Morean Arts Center's Chihuly Collection.

Take a shower with an ax-murderer

Beautiful bathroom but the guy standing in the shower would freak me out in the middle of the night.

But as disturbing as it looks when it's just standing there. It's even worse when it comes to life. This thing is somewhere between creepy and obscene, I can't figure out which.

It sprays!

It spits!

It can make what's probably the strangest product photo I've ever seen.

This Shower Sculpture is the Aquantass by Bagno Sasso. I understand being provocative but this is really taking provocation to the edge. Bagno Sasso ought to change their name to Bagno Sesso.

About the mildest thing this shower reminds me of is an ax-murderer. What do you guys think? Is this the only option left when a body pillow won't cut it anymore?

Paint brands are not interchangeable

The gang at Benjamin Moore sent me a trade alert last week and it bore the headline, Benjamin Moore colors can only be made with Benjamin Moore paint.

I have a highly critical eye when it comes to separating fact from fiction when it comes to marketing messages and in this case what Benjamin Moore is saying is true. I repeat the same thing to my clients all the time. Paint brands are not interchangeable.

From Benjamin Moore:

Mismatched colors are often not evident until the paint is on the walls, and the results can be disappointing for your clients. Competitors may claim they can match Benjamin Moore colors, but the truth is that they can’t.

You can only get true Benjamin Moore colors using Benjamin Moore paint. The reason lies in our manufacturing process. Our paints are created using proprietary colorants and resins and formulated with our patented waterborne technologies. This highly controlled system ensures the quality of Benjamin Moore paints and the purity of our colors.

When another store offers to match a Benjamin Moore color, their scanner simply provides its "best guess" for matching the color using another paint, generic colorants and a different tinting system. While it may be close, the final result is not the color you recommended to your client. In other words, it’s a knockoff.
Be sure that the color you envisioned is the color you get.

Authentic Benjamin Moore colors are only available at your local Benjamin Moore retailer.

Truer words were never spake. When it comes to paint colors, the formulation of the paint itself is the key. This is true across the board. I understand wanting to shave a buck off of the total cost of a job, but trust me, quality paint is not a corner you want to cut. Paint brands are not interchangeable.