On Friday night, we took an evening tour of Frank Lloyd Wright's Arizona complex,
Taliesin
West, a brilliant idea of Queue's. Night turned out to be a great time to tour
it; the air was cool and comfortable and most of the structures are canvas-roofed,
and glow in the dark from the lights inside. I liked it better than I expected to
do. The low ceilings that I had expected to be claustrophobic were mostly limited
to fairly small areas or areas where you were expected to be seated, and the
chairs are far more comfortable than they looked (not necessarily true of those
from his Prairie years, according to the guide, who was pretty much charisma-free
but was extremely knowledgeable. All of the walls consist of rough cement binding
large rocks from the nearby mountainside; the rust colors used on all the beams
and woodwork match the colors of the rocks and the painted cement floor, so that
the total effect is much warmer than I would have imagined. The house is very open
to the outside, and carefully aligned to frame certain views. There is even at
least one place where a hole is cut in a glass wall to allow an ancient vase to
fit on a narrow shelf.
One of our favorite features was the enormous
hearths throughout, all vast alcoves about four feet high, six wide, and three
deep. I don't know whether these would be allowed by today's building codes, but
if they are, we'd like one like that (preferably with an access to an ah pit at
one side to make cleanup easier). Another favorite feature was the dragon
sculpture given to Mrs. Wright after FLW's death. The giver had intended to plumb
it as a fountain, but Mrs. Wright pointed out that all self-respecting dragons
breathe fire, not water, and so it has been converted into a gas torch. It's the
only one I've seen where the flame tube points down instead of up, and the
resulting curved flame is beautiful and can be seen from all over the
site.
The best part of the tour was not due to FLW at all, except in
so far as he provided inspiration. Outside the cabaret theater, there is a
sculpture garden containing about 20 works by Heloise Crista. Some of her works
are shown here; the
website doesn't have any of my particular favorites, but you can see her style at
least. I have to admit that though I loved the sculptures, I hated some of her
names for them, things like "Into the Future" that struck me as bloated and
pretentious. There were a few, though, like "The Mind of God", "Through a Glass
Darkly", that are exact descriptions of the works, and there was one I really
liked, though more for its other associations: "Perelandra". All of her works are
for sale, though I have no idea of prices and am feared to ask.
Maybe
someday.
Oh -- I do have one complaint about the guide. He claimed
Wright used the name "Taliesin" to honor his Welsh ancestry and because the name
literally means "shining brow" and Wright liked to build on the brow of a hill. I
mean, really now. There is no way I can imagine that if the man had any knowledge
of Welsh mythology at all, as it seems reasonable to think he did, that he would
choose the name for its literal meaning -- though that might play a part -- rather
than for its far more important connection with the greatest bard of Celtic lore,
especially since Wright believed all the arts to be connected.
Still,
the tour as a whole left me half-tempted to throw everything else up and go study
architecture. I think Queue's visiting youngest sister, who is still in high
school, was more than half tempted.