April Showers Will Bring May Flowers at Museum of Glass

Photo courtesy: Museum of Glass.

Submitted by Museum of Glass

Spring will be in full bloom at Museum of Glass starting May 4 with the opening of “David Willis: Daisies,” an installation by Portland-based artist David Willis. Made during Willis’ Visiting Artist residency at the Museum in May 2012, these super-sized glass daisies will adorn the Grand Hall through August 2016.

The installation is a portion of a larger installation of glass daisies, Picking Up What I’m Putting Down, which includes towering flowers that play with scale and the viewer. As a flame worker, Willis often works alone and on a small scale. His 2012 residency gave him access to the Museum’s world-class Hot Shop and the expertise of the Hot Shop Team, which allowed him to greatly increase the scale of his project, resulting in flowers meant to give the visitor the impression of walking through a large forest.

“In the Pacific Northwest, we are surrounded by such abundance of majestic trees,” notes Susan Warner, Artistic Director at Museum of Glass. “This glass forest of flowers will be truly spectacular and also demonstrates the importance of teamwork in glass.”

For Willis, the piece has multiple meanings. “I am interested in scale, for many reasons. One being that it is a simple metaphor of how I see my place in the world. I am small. My favorite moments are when I feel beauty around me in a big way, so I like to create immersive environments to work within. With the Daisies I got to study beginnings while talking about endings, watching elements of the work come together to take the form of falling apart. This type of connection is interesting to me, so this has been a fun project and I’m happy to have the opportunity to share the work with so many people.”

A video of Willis working at the Museum in 2012 can be found online.

For more informationab out this installation or other Museum of Glass exhibits and programming, visit the Museum of Glass’ website.