Just after you cross under the arch at the start of the Flower Show, you'll see a bright green grand piano. This is a Steinway painted by artist Dale Chihuly, who's better known - especially to gardeners - as a glass-blower. His whimsical glass flowers and other creations have been displayed at botanical gardens across the country - he just finished a run at the Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens in Pittsburgh - and his work is included in more than 200 museum collections.
I saw his stuff for the first time at the Atlanta Botanical Garden in 2004. My favorite piece there was an enormous fountain filled not with water, but with Chihuly's glass interpretation of cascading, bubbling water. He did jagged glass icicles, pointing upward, shades of blue mixed with clear. It was quite stunning, with the Atlanta skyline in the background.
Chihuly is a real crowd-pleaser, which is why public gardens are so keen to do his shows. Not sure this is the case with the Flower Show's piano. His design on the lid is modernistic - most unlike the traditional flower designs artist Tim Martin is painting on another Steinway grand piano lid, elsewhere in the Flower Show. (That's worth a trip!) Swinging by Chihuly's creation several times this week, I inevitably overheard people say they thought the piano, and the idea of the piano, was interesting but they didn't like "the painting."
Ah well. It's a conversation piece, at least. It's called "Olympia" and it's part of a larger art case piano collection offered by Steinway & Sons. This is Chihuly's first design for them and he did it for the 2002 winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.
Steinway says the lid design, superimposed over a glass top, "reflects the abstract expression of wintry mountain forests juxtaposed with the bright Promethean colors idealized by the fire of the Olympic spirit." I suspect that idea also informs the choice of bromeliad all around the display. The bloom looks like an Olympic torch, doesn't it?
Artists have been decorating musical instruments for centuries, and Steinway began creating its art case pianos in 1857. The most famous one was an ornate work by the English artist Alma Tadema in the late 1800's. It sold at auction in 1997 for $1.2 million. Other Steinway art case pianos are in the East Room of the White House and the Smithsonian.
If you're a Las Vegas kind of person, you can see one in the lobby of the Bellagio Hotel and supposedly others can be found on cruise ships. Hmmm. Just wondering: Carnival or Queen Mary?
