Joel Ryser’s “Hot Glass” sculptures at the Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden. (Photo: Michael Morain)
By Michael Morain
Are you decorating a tree for the holidays? If you want to kick it up a notch, take a note from the Greater Des Moines Botanical Center and spiff up your greenery with sculptures of handmade, Venetian-style glass.
Joel Ryser, a glass artist from the nonprofit Hot Glass studio in Davenport, recently installed his handiwork throughout the conservatory, where it will remain through March 30. He draws inspiration from the “cane and murrine” technique from the Venetian island of Murano, where artists in the 1600s figured out how to slice bundles of colored glass rods and arrange the cross-sections into eye-popping patterns. (One version is called “millefiori,” which means “a thousand flowers.”)
In the garden, Ryser’s artwork pokes up from the ground like twisty stalks, plate-sized flowers and towering bulbous cacti. It catches the sunlight during the day and the colored lights during the Dome for the Holidays show at night (Wednesday through Sunday through Dec. 31).
The artwork is available for purchase for an indoor or outdoor site at a home or office — or for the Botanical Garden, as a tax-deductible donation. Proceeds from sales support tuition-free glassblowing workshops for at-risk students and military veterans at Ryser’s Hot Glass studio in Davenport.
Meantime, the Botanical Garden is hosting another new art exhibit, called “Blooming.” Local artist Jenna Brownlee’s jumbo paintings of peonies and other flowers are on display through Jan. 26 in the north gallery.
