STORY AND PHOTO BY KAREN BOSSICK

Take a tour of Dale Chilhuly’s Ulysses Cylinders Thursday afternoon at Ketchum’s Community Library.

The free docent tour will be offered at 4 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 17.

The Ulysses Cylinders employ cylinders as canvas to create a series of visual portals into James Joyce’s novel “Ulysses.”

The golden glass cylinders blown by glassblower Chihuly feature pen and ink drawings by painter Seaver Leslie.

Created during 2013, they were inspired by an earlier series titled “Irish Cylinders” that reflected Chihuly’s and Leslie’s love of Ireland and Irish literature. Artists Flora C. Mace and Joey Kirkpatrick constructed the fragile glass drawings, which Leslie had penned on paper. And Chihuly’s team amalgamated the drawings into cylinders of glass wrapped in gold leaf.

This is only the third time the cylinders have been exhibited. They were first exhibited at Dublin Castle in June 2014 and then at the Vassar College Thompson Library in 2015.

They are on loan from the Dale and Leslie Chihuly Foundation and the Chihuly Studio through Jan. 10, 2020.

Can’t make this tour? Library Program Director Martha Williams promises the library will offer additional tours in November and December.