Our little Art Glass Adventure

School holiday vacation was two weeks long this year. Two WEEKS! We love our kids as much as anyone but with dad taking time off from work and the kids around all day, the house got mighty small in a hurry. One of the great things we did to get out together was to take the kids to see the glass exhibit at Rhode Island School of Design’s new Chace Center. Our youngest is the little glass hound in the family. He is always the first to unpack the boxes when they arrive at the studio, always poking around asking questions when things are being photographed. He’s been like that ever since I can remember. He was 2 when we opened the Red Elephant Gallery. Today he’s the one that unpacks, counts and sorts the Christmas ornaments when they arrive during the summer. He does pretty well for a 6-year-old and has yet to break a piece (more than I can say for his mother). Anyway, I thought it would be fun for them to see the large scale glass sculptures by Dale Chihuly and there is one other piece in particular I thought the little guy should see. We have a book by glass artist Dan Dailey called the Glassigator. It is a children’s book that describes the glass blowing process through the blowing a glass alligator head. There is a glass alligator head by Dan Dailey (not sure if it is really titled “the glassigator”) in this Glass exhibit at the Chace Center. Anyway it was really fun for him to see his story book come to life and we had a good time picking out the differences between the glassigator in the book and the one in the exhibit.

Visiting the many, varied, and wonderful museums in the Northeast and down to Washington, D.C. has become one of the best ways to spend some time with our kids. Any size or subject but we're passionate for the more artsy! And If you have a little one who likes glass or understanding how things are made I highly recommend "The Glassigator" published by the Toledo Museum of Art.