One early morning I stood in the middle of the Qatari Desert in awe of The Curious Desert by artist Olafur Eliasson, came home and started the Through the Window Afghan inspired by the glass bobbles. https://nmoq.org.qa/en/calendar/olafur-eliasson-the-curio...

Glass:
Your pearl garden
Fascinated by the myriad distorted and repeated reflections that an accumulation of glass spheres produces, Eliasson has used this material again and again over the last decade. The arrangement, which exhibits no particular geometrical logic, includes a number of coloured spheres interspersed among the clear ones. The coloured spheres are not uniformly covered with paint, but have been adorned with small circles of colour at only one point, which causes them to change in appearance according to the angle at which they are seen.

In this context, Eliasson is especially interested in the glass sphere’s resemblance to pearls, the rare objects of beauty that played an important role in the culture and economy of the nearby lagoon.