CHIHULY

I love art glass. It draws me in with a mesmerizing quality that is otherworldly. Remember those craftspeople at festivals and fairs who would blow little unicorns and ballerinas to hang on invisible threads that spun and glittered in the sunlight? That's not art glass. What about mille fleurs paperweights and delicate enameled glass boxes or colorful Venetian clowns? I don't think so. All this is by way of saying that there is a master glassblower among us named Dale Chihuly and then there is everyone else.

The Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix is the most remarkable collection of plants thriving in the Sonoran Desert that you will ever see. Walking paths snake through islands of natural landscape that combine form and texture to showcase the cacti to their best advantage.

Combining these two disparate elements would seem foolhardy, yet when natural, wild elegance met with Chihuly's genius, magic happened. Stunning images assailed my senses and I felt physically moved by beauty. Maybe that is one job fine art has to do; it takes you somewhere else so that each part of the image comes into focus and imprints itself on your being.