Ella Kitchens, Editor-In-Chief
My 20 years of life have been spent almost entirely in the eastern United States. But the greatest thing I’ve ever seen is the Pacific Sun.
When I was in high school, my family took a trip to Seattle. I can’t remember why, but I wasn’t in a good mood the first day of our trip. Everything felt far away as I zoned out. As most inexperienced Seattle tourists would do, we visited the Space Needle first, but my mom said we were going somewhere different next. Some type of art museum.
Chihuly Garden and Glass is an exhibit containing the works of glass artist Dale Chihuly, but I didn’t know this as we walked from the Space Needle and entered a room full of colors and light. I felt my bad mood fading as we passed waving blue sealife, boats filled with unusual shapes, and swirling, symmetrical walls of orange, yellow, and green.
Then we entered the garden in front of the exhibit. And there I saw it.
Yellow, blue, and red. Macaroni noodles poking proudly and playfully into the sky. Spinning and spiraling tendrils seemed to reach out to me and say “hello.” Looking into the Washington sky, something light and optimistic took root within me.
I was completely transfixed. I bought a postcard with the Pacific Sun on it before we left the museum, so that I could have a way to remember it. Several years have passed and it comes to mind often.
Maybe my obsession began with how Chihuly designed this garden. The garden contains far more than just one sculpture, with huge blue and orange glass spheres and reeds resting between flowers and neon glass towers stretching up above. I learned that these glass sculptures weren’t just plopped into the garden, the landscape was entirely built around the glass work.
Or maybe it’s the way they melded the colors together to create this emotional reaction. Humans have been looking up at the sun since literally day one, and there’s a reason why yellow is seen as a happy color that can provoke positive feelings. Seeing a recreation of the sun against the blue sky could bring similar feelings to mind.
Or maybe there’s a far more unexplainable reason why, when I looked up at that playful yellow globe, I felt that odd optimistic feeling that you could call hope.
Since then, I’ve been collecting small things that remind me of the Sun. Glass and clay marbles add a slight weight to my pocket, but they make me remember that same buoyant feeling when I roll them around in my hand. Folded paper cranes litter my desk. I’ve discovered more moments with my family and friends, even small ones, and more moments outside under the real sun.
There are a large number of Chihuly glass works in the Franklin Park Conservatory and Botanical Gardens in Columbus. Though they are different from the works in Seattle, they still make me happy to see.
I have only seen the Pacific Sun once, but I plan to return to Seattle someday to see it again. Next time I plan to go in the evening. I’ve heard it glows in the dark at night.
Ella Kitchens ’28 is a journalism and global health major from Lexington, Kentucky.