Alien Artifacts

I visited our Desert Botanical Garden during the recent holidays with some family, and found a surprising development. Nestled into the drab winter landscape of our desert were dozens of alien objects! This is the multi-million-dollar Chihuly exhibit "The Nature of Glass", designed especially for the Garden. I apologize for the fuzziness of some of the images; I am still learning to use my digital camera at low light settings (it was sunset). I'll return to this exhibit again when the cacti are blooming; it will make for some spectacular images! They are posted roughly in chronological order; you can see the light fade as they progress.

Sunrise- This piece alone is > $1million US

Towering Agave-

Marble Bay- Some of these spheres are 1/2 meter across!

Garden of the gods-

Alien Landscape-

Symbiotic Pipes-

Desert Flames-

Crested Saguaro- Cacti like these are only 1:100,000, and take centuries to grow...

Glacial Desert-

Chimera Chandelier-

Glazed Invaders-

Living Glass-

Reaching for Light-

Reverse Osmosis-

3 Baskets- Some of these are nearly a meter across!

7 Baskets-

Frozen Flame-

ShimmeringSaguaro- The silhouette gives some scale...

Silicate Sentinels-

Sunset-

Hope you enjoyed these; took an hour to post this!

As advertised, I revisited the Garden during springtime blooms & got some more interesting color from the Sonora Desert. I finally have gotten thru downloading, resizing, uploading, and now posting the winners. As always, it was hard to narrow down the field of candidate images, since there is so much to see! As you will see, some of the desert colors match those of the glass; unfortunately, the fuschia blooms of the Spiny Hedgehog cacti had already passed... Enjoy!

Brainy Pincushion

Fiery Pincushion

Hedgehog blooms

fruiting Barrels

twisted Barrel

Mallow & Brittlebush

Firecracker Penstemon

Parry's Penstemon

Palo Verde carpet & canopy

Fairy Duster

frozen fountain

fantasia

Lupine & glass sombrero

light & shadow

liquid load

prehensile barbs?!

Prickly Pear parade

Prickly delight

Santa Rita prickly pear

Cholla in color

"Sun" detail