Glass and Cupcakes

The best thing to do in Tacoma - watch the glass artists in the Museum of Glass' hot shop.  While the exhibits were cool - especially the glass sculptures based on children's drawings - it was awesome to enter the 90 foot stainless steel cone that houses the hot shop.  The workers were creating glass structures using molds created by artist Nicholas Kripal.  To envision one of these pieces, think of a bunt cake made of glass.  The glass is blown into a bulb then the bulb is blown into the mold creating clear pieces whose edges contain crystalline architectural details.  Later, the pieces will be constructed into a larger site specific artwork.  Nicholas Kripal and Jeffrey Mongrain are the artists collaborating on this project.  It was wild to see the method of glass blowing, but even more amazing to be in the presence of the artists as they oversaw the procedure.

3.  Blowing Bulb in Mold

1.  Creating Bulb

                                                          

                                                                           2.  Placing Bulb in Mold

Finished Product - for Now

To leave the Museum of Glass and head away from the sound is just as much of a treat as the museum itself.  The walkway over the highway, called the Chihuly Bridge of Glass, is full of glass artworks from Dale Chihuly.  The first part as you leave the museum is cool - a huge case of various size vases with elaborate flowers and imaginative squiggles coming out of them and snaking around them.  Then there are the giant sculptures that look like blue rock candy.  Finally, the jaw dropping ceiling of glass art works.  I was really not expecting to look up while crossing a bridge over a highway and see over two thousand object floating above my head.

Tacoma has a pretty cute little downtown.  As we meandered, I found myself babbling away about some cupcake show I watched last week about a cupcake shop in the northwest (although I think the shop is in Canada, so A joked that it is actually in the southwest).  Like the angels heard me there was a cupcake shop!  I had this amazing chocolate pretzel cupcake.  Not only was there an inch of fudgy frosting covered with pretzel pieces, but there were also pretzel pieces baked into the bottom of the cupcake.  In honor of friends who love to take pictures of their food, salivate over this: