A picture of Chihuly glass sculptures at Kew raised some discussion in January, so I thought I would offer the exhibit at the Missouri Botanic Garden in St. Louis for comments. Please see some vacation pictures taken by my roommate, companion and live-in IT department, Bri, here: http://www.brichadwick.com/chihuly.htm. One wit said earlier that Kew used to grow plants but now apparently grows tesque. In some cases, the St. Louis exhibit seemed a bit grotesque, but mostly I thought it a fun addition to the gardens. I loved the red reed grove and the herons sticking out of various ponds. Had I gotten to a certain glass artisans studio a few minutes earlier, I would have had a very limited version of a Chihuly-like sculpture in my garden. We saw the exhibit during the day and at night. The Chihuly Nights event was disappointing to me as an attendee because MoBot fell short of adequately lighting the sculptures. Some we would have missed completely at night had we not known where there were from the daytime visit. Other lighting opportunities were missed, too. However, I bet more people attended the weekly Thursday night event the night we went than attended the Royals-Cardinals game playing that night. This made a lot of money for MoBots endeavors. All the more reason I wish the night lighting matched the beauty of the rest of the garden.
I'm sure it has been written about / discussed somewhere, but do installations such as these cause the institution to have to come up with something bigger and better every year?
I think "different" is the key. Too often any of us can tell ourselves, "Oh, we've seen the garden and we can see it anytime, but this other event must be seen before ..." So the garden trip gets put off while we go to a short-run play or something. I think Powell Gardens in the Kansas City area has to come up with ways to remind people to make time for a trip. Their Butterfly Festival is an annual hit. Last year they had treehouses built and this year there are mazes (haven't seen them yet). I hope that these events draw people to see the horticultural niceties to be found there.
