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Beyond the dazzling flowers, past the gurgling fountains, experts inside the Atlanta Botanical Garden's greenhouses are at work on something that rarely draws the oohs and aahs that the outdoors does. Yet their mission is both the foundation and future of public gardens everywhere: conservation.

To highlight the plight of rare and often endangered species of plants and animals — namely, orchids and amphibians — the garden has teamed with an unlikely ally, Hans Godo Fräbel. The internationally acclaimed Atlanta artist has created about 175 glass sculptures of brilliantly colored orchids and tropical frogs and lizards, along with some signature pieces, such as his "cavorting clowns," for a conservatory exhibit.

Photos by JOEY IVANSCO/Staff (ENLARGE)
Hans Godo Fräbel (top) works on a piece for the exhibit.
(ENLARGE)
Fräbel's renderings of exotic and endangered orchids include this painstaking interpretation of a ghost orchid, with its ethereal flower. Look for the real thing in bloom in the orchid center.
(ENLARGE)
The Rodigas' embreea sculpture, created with artist Hung Nguyen, was the hardest to sculpt, they say.
(ENLARGE)
Fräbel frogs — their tropical hues infused in the glass — find a landing spot on an sketch drawn by Anne Sutherland for the glass artists. The real frogs are rare or endangered species.
(ENLARGE)
The exhibit's sole outdoor sculpture is an acrylic cube fountain containing glass spheres. The 12-by-12-by-12-foot piece is positioned on one corner in the fountain in Cox Courtyard.
(ENLARGE)
The largest indoor sculpture is a spiraling steel fountain featuring 23 of Fräbel's "cavorting clowns." The piece, 9 feet tall by 9 feet wide, is surrounded by colorful live orchids.
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PREVIEW Orchid Daze with Fräbel: Glass Impressions Through April 1. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesdays-Sundays. Atlanta Botanical Garden, 1345 Piedmont Ave. N.E. $12 adults; $9 seniors and students 3-17. Orchid markets the last weekend of each month. 404-876-5859, www.atlantabotanicalgarden.org.

Some of the one-of-a-kind pieces, inspired by the garden's orchids — the largest public collection in the United States — are behind glass. But many are planted amid the real things, leaving some scratching their heads as if to ask: Is it art, or is it nature?

"Trying to copy nature would be schmaltzy, so while the inspiration is real, our interpretations are a little more modern, a little more fantasy," says the East German-born Fräbel, who, with his eight-artist team, has been an Atlanta fixture for 40 years.

All pieces in the exhibit, which opened Saturday and continues through March, are for sale, with part of the proceeds benefiting the garden's conservation efforts.

And while the mere mention of glass leaves Atlantans wondering whether the show aims to recapture the garden's wildy popular Dale Chihuly exhibit in 2004, both Fräbel and garden staff emphasize that this collection is a different animal.

"Both artists came from the studio glass movement of the '60s, but they each went in different directions," says Cathleen Cooke, the garden's exhibitions manager. "It's a different kind of glass, the sculptures are smaller, and the pieces more realistic than Chihuly's."

Apprentice to master

Fräbel's storybook rise to fame is a publicist's dream.

The artist — whose tall, muscular frame belies his 65 years — became recognized in the 1980s as a pioneer in glass flame work. It's a craft usually associated with utilitarian uses, in which he employs strong borosilicate crystal, better known as Pyrex. In his small Midtown studio, he and his artists, armed with torches, have spent the past six months heating rods of glass to 3,500 degrees for sculpting intricate flower petals, leaves and roots that are later welded together in sculptures. Some of the glass is blown.

It's a scene reminiscent of the old European shop tradition in which, working under a master, artisans rose through the ranks from apprenticeships — a tradition Fräbel knows well.

Having no money for college, Fräbel followed in the footsteps of his father, who worked for the large glassmaking company Jena Glaswerke. After deciding he wanted to learn English, the younger Fräbel moved in 1965 to Atlanta, where he took a job at Georgia Tech making scientific instruments while studying art at Emory and Georgia State universities. Overqualified, he quickly became bored and began to make small animal figurines as gifts.

When budget cuts eliminated his job two years later, he launched a new career as an artist whose work eventually landed in many prominent hands, from Queen Elizabeth and Japanese Emperor Akihito to Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. His famous "Hammer and Nails" sculpture is displayed at the National Building Museum, and from 1987 to 1992, his "cavorting clowns" drew worldwide recognition when selected for Absolut vodka's ad campaign.

In addition to Fräbel's original sculptures, his studio creates "multiple originals," or hand-sculpted pieces by artists using models made by Fräbel. Most of his pieces were made of clear crystal until 10 years ago, when his artists began to experiment with color, infusing it in the glass. It's that use of color in plant sculptures that prompted Fräbel to display his work in a private garden on a tour last spring — and now in the exhibit.

From greenhouse to studio

"During the tour, we noticed how the glass just glistened in that natural setting," says Kevin Oonk, president of Fräbel Studios. "So, knowing that an important part of the botanical garden's mission is conservation, we went to them with this idea."

Pairing glass orchids with real ones seemed a perfect match, because the garden was looking for a new spin for Orchid Daze. The annual event highlights the plants in winter, when many are in bloom — and when attendance is lightest.

Fräbel artists scoured the greenhouses for inspiration and took some plants back to the studio as models. Anne Sutherland, the studio's artistic director, researched the plants and made detailed sketches of them. The orchids and frogs chosen had to be representative and at the same time tell a story — one with a conservation or biological twist.

"I was so struck by the fact that their artists were so appreciative of the tiniest details of each plant, something that usually escapes most of our visitors," says Becky Brinkman, the garden's orchid curator.

She and other horticulturists collaborated with the artists most closely in replicating the rare species, Brinkman says. And while most of the designs are realistic, many are larger than life, such as the 17 sculptures of endangered or extinct orchids. (Prices range from $500 for a studio-line frog to about $13,000 for a Fräbel-original orchid.)

"I think what the public will dig the most is the ghost orchid, which has this mass of roots, with an ethereal, ghostlike flower," Brinkman says.

There's also the rare orange lady-slipper orchid, a crowd favorite because of its brilliant color. Then there's the endangered blue vanda orchid, the bright yellow tulip orchid — even the familiar pink and white moth orchids commonly sold in supermarkets.

The Rodigas' embreea orchid, distinguished by its dangling flowers, proved the most challenging. "Clustering the leaves together and creating the combination of colors was so difficult that one artist, Hung Nguyen, worked for weeks on it," Fräbel says.

Several dozen glass frogs inspired by rare or endangered species rest on some orchids' foliage, while others hang out in terrariums. Like the flowers, all are brightly hued, such as the strawberry poison dart frog and the golden toad.

Other pieces are more whimsical, including Fräbel's "Viney" sculptures (half human/half plant), his fanciful flower goblets rising from a pond, and his skinny Longfellow figures made of frosted glass. Yet even many of his orchids, while still botanically accurate, border on fantasy as well, emphasizing their sheer beauty.

"The fluid forms of living orchids," Fräbel says, gazing into a glass bloom, "they're like art nouveau."