Creative Spark

Last week we took the ferry to Seattle to see the Native American exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum.  The museum was closed.  Neither of us had checked on line! So instead we trekked over to Seattle Center to go to the Chihuly museum. How fortune that SAM was closed, because it was  a spectacular exhibit.  I posted pictures on Facebook Wonono took that day, but still I see them when I close my eyes.  Both of us were just bowled over by the man’s genius.  In every room, at every turn, I kept wondering what made this man create these pieces.  Where did the ideas for them come from?  What makes any artist ‘see’ an image, or a writer, ‘feel’ characters as if they are real?  As a child I always made up stories.  I imagine that Chihuly dreamed pictures and images, although what made him switch to glass as the medium he wanted to use to bring these images to life, I have no idea.  The creativity of every piece was astonishing: bold colors, unusual shapes, installations that told a complete story.  When we walked out into the museum garden to see the pieces that had been installed there, I pointed to a very tall bush, and asked Wonono if he thought it was an art piece, or real. We walked closer.  The ends of the green, spiky leaves were clear: glass; Chihuly.  When I danced as a child, I wanted to choreograph, although I had no word for it. I would just place the other kids around the room, and then dance movements for each of them to follow. I used scarves and other props, and would rework as I watched them dance.  Why did I want to do that?  Again, no idea.  Whatever impelled me to ‘tell stories’ one way or another must have compelled the glass artist as well.  Ursula leGuin answered that question with a gesture at a reading: she glanced upward.  I don’t know what I think of the word ‘God’.  But for me what she meant was spirit. In turn, I see that as a deep knowing, out of which we create.