Jellies as Art

[thoreau]

Today - David and I scooted down in his Honda along with Miss Kate and took in the Highway way coastline and then the Monterrey Bay Aquarium's exhibits, including an exhibit called "Jellies as Art" - which was super cool. They hung paintings and sculpture from around the world next to beautiful jelly fish from the world over in ornate sculptural tanks.

Take the beauty in picture #1 below, he/she is from the Black Sea - and is replicating at such a rate - they are eating all the plankton - and starving the fish population. Scientists are blaming fertilizer runoff from Ukraine and Russia for the boom in the jellies. but wow - aren't they gorgeous.

The exhibit talked about how jellies 'hunt' and how swarm so them can be truly deadly. and then they showed some swarmes in the tanks that are just beautiful. As usual - I shot gazillion pictures and whittled them down - but this exhibit like the Chihuly (who was featured as part of the 'art' part of Jellies as Art) - - just took pictures of itself. There were surprises like a school of clown fish (from Finding Nemo) and a entrancing school of sardines in the "kulp garden" that dances a constant frantic ballet.

The Monterrey Bay Aquarium is amazing and if every exhibit they have is curated with such interest and craft as "Jellies as Art"? I'll be returning customer.













Here's a slideshow from my Picasa Account - click any photo embiggen.

Comments

[notdefined.livejournal.com]

You could go every day and spend hours at a time and ever get tired. The place is amazing. The fact that it is very education oriented attributes to that, I'm sure. Did you manage to grab their latest bulletin on ecologically safe fish? It is a pamphlet they hand out to let you know which species are either not endangered or are being farmed in an ecologically sound manner. Oh and as far as gender goes, I am not 100% certain, but I believe they are hermaphrodites, so it would be a sufficient descriptor.

[stebas.livejournal.com]

they indeed look amazing. Nice interesting stuff

[budmassey.livejournal.com]

That first one looks like some exquisite creation by Chihuly.

[labeartorycub.livejournal.com]

Great pictures! Thanks for sharing them. Say hello to Dave, please. HUGS

[beastbriskett.livejournal.com]

The Monterey aquarium is world-class--such a well-presented array of sea life! Thanks for sharing the jellies, Robert. I haven't been there in years; it's about time to visit again.
Were there any baby otters?

[low-fat-muffin.livejournal.com]

No baby otters - but we did get to see the end of feeding time... hungry little buggers. It was (as expected) CRAWLING with screaming offspring of the human variety.

[bibliocub.livejournal.com]

They are quite repugnant in their larval stage.

[cuyahogarvr.livejournal.com]

Beautiful pictures!

[nu-romantic.livejournal.com]

I love the first pic. A large scale version would look quite at home in a frame...

[cuboz.livejournal.com]

So,

Do you actually refer to these JUST as "Jellies", rather than Jellyfish?

There are some STUNNING looking ones there... and my flatmate has a beautiful blown glass sculpture of one, that is SO delicate, and when lit from above, looks amazing!

Of course, pretty much ALL the jellyfish in Oz can kill you! LOL

*hugs*