Saturday Thru the Lens: OKC

Last weekend, I attended a women's retreat in Oklahoma City. It was held at one of the hotels on the canal in Bricktown.

This beautifully renovated area is full of things to do and see, so it was a great location for a weekend getaway.

The retreat was a perfect combination of spiritual refreshing, fun, making new friends, discovering new restaurants, sight-seeing and shopping.

Sunday morning was fresh and clean after Saturday afternoon's downpour. I decided to trade sleeping in for a photo walk around the waterway.

The retreat agenda included a free Saturday afternoon to do whatever you like. I've seen most of the major attractions in OKC, but have never been to the Museum of Art. Their featured exhibit right now is a collection of works by Matisse. 

Honestly, I enjoy mixed media, sculpture and photography more than paintings and drawings. When I told the clerk I was just interested in the Chihuly glass, she was aghast. No exaggeration. I got a mild admonishment/encouragement to see Matisse. 

She basically quoted their website promo:  "OKCMOA will be the exclusive North American venue for Matisse in His Time: Masterworks of Modernism from the Centre Pompidou, Paris, which presents, for the first time outside Europe, highlights from one of the world’s preeminent collections of Modern Art."

So I breezed thru Matisse, then meandered happily thru Chihuly.

This was my favorite - a boat full of glass balls, reflected in the floor.

There was an entire hallway with a clear glass ceiling. It was filled with hundreds of colorful glass shapes. 

The ceiling reflected light and color on the wall.

Glass balls and swirls fill another wall.

Maybe this was my favorite...

This piece was my favorite, too! It looks like dozens of taper candles stuck on logs.

The 55' glass tower stands in the atrium of the museum entrance. I researched & found out it's made of 2400 handblown parts, and is the tallest of the Chihuly towers.

I liked the skyscraper in the background of the glass skyscraper.

Something else I discovered on my Sunday morning photo walk was the Oklahoma Land Run Monument.  It's supposed to be the largest series of sculptures in the world, consisting of 47 statues spread across a distance of 365 feet.  

Did those settlers ever imagine the buildings that would rise out of the red dirt?

Or the highways that would run through a capitol city?

The Land Run is an interesting story, something I never heard of growing up in Ohio. 

It's why OK proudly calls itself the Sooner State. Not the coolest of names, but a fascinating bit of history!