Garden Rant

Wicked Plants: The Exhibit

Walking through an exhibit made to look like an old house filled with the characters and stories and artifacts from a book I wrote...that is a weird experience.

And I realize that it sounds like shameless self-promotion to talk about it, but--it must be talked about.

It's happening at the North Carolina Arboretum in Asheville, NC, and from there it will travel around the country.  I'm not sure where it's going next, but there are several museums looking at dates now.

Here's an interesting thing about this exhibit:  it's built in such a way that it basically packs itself.  No shipping cartons are necessary:  the walls, the furniture, the props--all of it fits precisely into a truck, with one room basically serving as a crate for all of the smaller bits, all of which only need to be wrapped in furniture blankets the way you'd move your own stuff.  Much of it is super-lightweight, too, which makes it less expensive and fuel-intensive to move.  This is the sort of thing that you'd never know about the exhibit walking through it--but it is very cleverly put together.

The walls are hung with portraits of the weird dead ancestors. The unfortunate victims of wicked plants, most of them.  Although some were practioners of the dark art of poison.

There are specially-made books sitting around the house--all of them made by a local book bindery.  In fact, almost 200 local artists and craftspeople and tradespersons were hired to help build the exhibit--it was its own little economic stimulus program.

There are dead bodies slumped over tables.  Imagine my excitement.

and, in the dining room, a liquor cabinet with bottles of mysterious wicked potions.  Each label is a fascinating little read all by itself.   

Even the bathroom is creepy and weird.

It's the kind of exhibit that requires you to figure stuff out on your own--you actually walk around opening drawers, taking things off shelves, examining the evidence.

I've been working with the Arboretum for the last couple of years on this exhibit, but honestly, I had no idea what to expect when I went to see it last month.  So I get no credit for this--this is really all their doing.  Amazing.

It'll be in Asheville through early September, then it starts to tour--to find out more about all of that, go here.  And if you're in the area, or if you have friends in North Carolina, I hope you'll encourage them to go check it out in person and let me know what you think.

Weird Wonderfulness from Hendrick's Gin

As long as we're talking about booze today, here's a strange and marvelous thing:  the people at Hendrick's Gin are injecting their usual madcap absurdity into London Cocktail Week, an event it pains me greatly to miss.  Anyway, they've created an Umbrella Emporium to pay tribute to the cocktail umbrella.  Check this one out--the Mumbrella:  ‘A miniature umbrella made out of iridescent feathers is shielding a chicken egg sat on a nest. Is it waiting for the egg to hatch, or is it just shielding it from the morning rain before it gets eaten for breakfast? Only the Mumbrella knows...’ 

Well. There you have it.

 

Chicken Paintings!

Now that the book tour madness has settled down a bit, I'm hoping I'll get to pick up my paintbrush more often.   I always paint small--it's all I have time for--and the most expedient way to move them out of my attic and on to someone ele's wall seems to be eBay.  If you're interested, follow along on my blog.

I've also joined a very smart group of artists who have created a site called Daily Paintworks. They sell small, affordable paintings online every day. There's some fabulous work there, and it's encouraging to see artists finding their own way in this new and ever-changing economy. So do check that out, too.

One last thing--this is something else I used to do and have only recently revived--notecards of some of these paintings are available through Zazzle. I'll continue to post more images there over time, so do check back. Who knows--there might even be a calendar before Christmas!

Gourmet Restaurant for Plants

How cool and interesting and weird is this?

Here's what I know about it:

The Crocker Art Museum will open the world’s first photosynthetic restaurant this spring. Conceptual artist Jonathon Keats has developed a gourmet cuisine for flora by filtering and mixing different wavelengths of sunlight. Keats’ installation will be on view in the floral plantings in front of the historic Crocker from April 16 through July 17, 2011.

 An experimental philosopher, Keats has a long history of encompassing other species in his installations. He has choreographed a ballet for honeybees by selectively planting flowers around their hives. He has also produced travel documentaries for houseplants by projecting videos of foreign skies onto their foliage in a darkened theater.

 “What motivates me is curiosity. In the case of my photosynthetic restaurant, I wondered what it’s like to be human and to do peculiarly human things like savoring a good meal,” Keats explains. “Adapting a common human activity to the plant kingdom—without anthropomorphizing the plants—is a way to explore an aspect of human behavior that we otherwise take for granted. “

 Keats’ efforts to share aspects of human culture with other species encourages us to scrutinize our own cultural values. He adds, “If this project succeeds, the plants at the Crocker will eat well, and the people who encounter them—myself included—will have a provocative conversation.”

Cool idea.  Has anyone seen it?

Would You Kick This Out of Your Greenhouse?

Sculpture by Tess Dalhgren PHOTO BY DEREK LACTAOEN

That's what happened at Humboldt State University, home to the largest undergraduate botany program in the country.  The sculpture was placed in the greenhouse as part of a campus-wide sculpture walk designed to display student art at 60 different locations around campus.  It's up to the campus building coordinators to decide whether the art submitted to their building is appropriate.  In this case, the greenhouse manager himself thought that, being a college campus, art should be seen and discussed, but no, it had to go.

Here's a smart and well-reasoned discussion of the issue from journalism professor and columnist Marcy Burstiner.  She thinks that student art needs to be exhibited, failing any concerns about safety, space limitations, logistics, etc.  As it is, this piece has been moved to the university gallery so that it can, in fact, be seen.

I have to say--I find this piece to be not in the least bit shocking.  Like, not at all.  We've got a torso, we've got a big vine, we have an obvious statement of some sort about plants and sex--so what?  A greenhouse is lurid enough already; this hardly tarts it up more than the orchids and pitcher plants already do.

Your thoughts?

One Last Fabulous Gift Idea

I've been a fan of Andie Thram's beautiful and mysterious paintings of forests for years.  She goes out into the forest to paint (and leads groups of students on outdoor art excursions a few times a year), and her work is dark and exquisite and magical and whimsical all at once. She's never had much of an online presence--you have to get on her email list to keep up with her--but this year, someone must have finally begged and pleaded until she put her art for sale on Etsy. 

So now you can get this extraordinary calendar on Etsy for only $30. Once you see her art up close, you're going to want to buy originals as well as the calendar--but for that, you've just got to get in touch with her and ask.

 

Paula Hayes’ astonishingly beautiful terrariums

 
“It’s only very partially an object. It’s mostly a verb.”

That’s how Paula Hayes defines a terrarium, as you’ll see and hear in the video above. Hayes is known for a variety of botanical art endeavors, including landscapes and living sculptures that can take the form of necklaces, planters, bird feeders, and terrariums. Hayes is first an artist, who has a masters’ degree in sculpture from Parsons, but she supported herself as a gardener during her college years. After that, she started combining sculpture and gardening in objects that contain landscapes and landscapes that often contain objects—simple, poetic, ephemeral. 

The terrariums are always hand-blown in spherical organic shapes, and are the most delicate and beautiful I have ever seen.  Recently, Hayes accepted a challenge to think of forms that would complement the lobby of New York’s Musuem of Modern Art and came up with Nocturne of the Limax maximus, an installation containing two large-scale terrariums: Slug and Egg. 

See it at MoMA, if you can; the installation runs through February 11. 

Our Clever Readers and the Gifty Things They Make.

As promised, here's a round-up of some of the very cool things you people make and sell and would like to share right now, during the holiday shopping frenzy.  You are all so clever and creative that we just can't stand it.  While self-promotion can be a little weird, we invited you to post links to the stuff you make and sell, and we'll invite you again--if we didn't include you in this post, but you'd like to share your work, post a link here in the comments.  And remember--we mean stuff you MAKE!  Crafts.  Art.  Handmade.  Homemade. This includes notecards, calendars, etc of your original art.  If you make and sell it, we're happy to spread the word!

OK, here goes:

Turns out garden writer Debra Lee Baldwin is also a talented photographer and painter.  I am so sending  these as Christmas cards this year.  Get them on Zazzle. Succulent chic, indeed.

 

Janit Calvo makes crazy cool miniature garden stuff and sells it on Etsy.  Wow.  It's fabulous.  I'm in love.

 

DirtCouture.com is an online marketplace that only sells handmade garden stuff. Seriously.  That's amazing.  Go check that out right now.

 

Heather's Garden has garden calendars for sale on CafePress, and Ellis Hollow has some for sale on Zazzle -- including those fantastic Bloom Day scans many of you know and love.

Susan Day and husband Richard Day's butterfly photographs are available on a calendar as well.  Lovely stuff!

 

And Joseph Tychonievich's 2011 garden cartoon calendar?  It's here.

 

Nora Graf makes these amazing mesquite gourds and sells them on Etsy. Wow!

 

Patricia Jakobi, nature photographer, has cards and notecards here.

 

Eva Maria-Ruhl is an incredible botanical artist.  Seriously.  Check out her work on a  variety of lovely products on Zazzle -- including this Three Little Figs mug.

 

Metalwork!  Fossil Forge!  It's amazing. Outdoor metal garden stuff.

 

Here's floral photography from Marsanne on Etsy.

 

Kim, the Sassy Crafter, makes a ton of stuff I want.  How could you not love these upcycled accessories?

 

Susan Morrison makes these fabulous 12 Days of Christmas (If Gardeners Ruled the World) cards and much more at her Zazzle store.

 

Gorgeous crafty things with vintage botanical lithographs are here.

 

And last but not least--SOAP!  We all need fabulous handmade soap! Whew!  That's it, folks! Santa is TIRED OF TYPING!  Hope you enjoyed this crafty round-up. Support your friends and neighbors in their efforts to make something real, handmade, recycled, artsy, and unique.  Happy holidays!

 

 

 

 

Calling All CraftyPersons

So there's been a discussion on Facebook with a certain artistic garden writer about how she really must make her beautiful artwork available for sale as holiday cards. She's promised us that she will, and that got me thinking:  Who else makes cool stuff that holiday shoppers might want to know about?

In particular:

Garden photographers, artists, etc with 2011 calendars to sell

Or greeting cards to sell (especially with a winter/holiday theme)

Fabulous handmade garden-ish gifts on Etsy, eBay, or your own site

Etc, etc.  If you make it, we want to flaunt it!

Post a link to your online store in the comments and we'll do a holiday round-up soon. If you post a link, we assume we also have permission to grab an image of your stuff and run it here on GardenRant in our post. Feel free to write a little something about what the thing is or how you make it if you feel readers would want to know that.  (i.e, "I make this soap with milk from my own goats and olive oil from my own olive trees."  Could happen, right?)

And if you're not making your wonderful art available for the masses, why not?  Check out Zazzle, CafePress, and Blurb to find out how to put your designs on everything from iPhone cases to yoga mats to coffee table books.

Getting Serious About Photography at the San Francisco Botanical Garden

Everybody's got a fancy camera.  But we still take shitty pictures of the garden.

I'm not talking about those beguiling close-ups of the dew on a rose that we can all grab with our macro lenses.  And I'm not talking about decent, straightforward, representational photos of beautiful places. I'm talking about photos that communicate the idea of a garden the way we really see them. How many times have your own photographs failed to do justice to what your eyes could see?

Photographer Saxon Holt has taken on a new role at the San Francisco Botanical Garden as their Photography Program Director.  He's put together a series of lectures and workshops that will grow and change over time in response to the needs and ideas of the people involved. "I want a program that is not about me," he says, "not about how I see beauty, but about how WE see beauty; and what we can do to share it with others."

The series starts with a lecture by Saxon and Lucy Tolmach, director of horticulture at Filoli Gardens. That's happening on September 23, and then there's a Master Photography Workshop on September 25 that's limited to just twelve students.

Then, on Monday mornings through October, there will be a series of morning photo shoots--attend one or attend them all, but either way, it sounds like a pretty nice way to spend a Monday morning in October.

What do you want to know about garden photography?  What would your dream photography workshop consist of?  Let Saxon know and maybe you'll see it on the schedule next year.

And congrats to Saxon and John Greenlee, and Timber Press on winning the GWA award for The American Meadow Garden!

Couldn't resist

Oh, I suppose it is possible to go too far with this stuff. Though an element of awe creeps in when the idea is taken to its limits. Our guest ranter inspired me to once again post my very favorite gnome image (above, from the Motherland—Dunster, GB), as well as this entry from one of my Facebook friends, Pam. Thanks, Pam! (She saw this in Portland, Maine.) Maybe we should have a contest.

 
 

A gardener’s art project

Browsing the LATimes yesterday, I found Deborah Netburn's article on Botanical Serigraphs: The Gene Bauer Collection. Gene Bauer is a California gardener and naturalist who planted almost a million daffodil bulbs behind her property and was the native flora chairwoman of California Garden Clubs, Inc. during the 70s. As chair, her job was to educate the members of the clubs about native flora, so she traveled throughout the state, studying wildflowers. During 1972-78, she created over 50 small booklets containing screenprints of her own drawings of native plants, each accompanied by an essay.

 

Each booklet focused on just one plant, like the desert mariposa (Calochortus kennedyi) or the buckhorn cholla (Opuntia acanthocarpa). The drawings are clean, accurate yet simplified, and vividly colored. (Actually, though I’ll be happy to have the book, I’d love to get my hands on an original print.) 

These are the type of projects we so rarely see now. These books are much like the broadsides of the literary world—also popular in the 60s and 70s—where poets would do a small print run of a poem and perhaps an artwork in a small booklet or folded poster. I have a few of these, and once curated an exhibition of them. It’s really a labor of love because there’s no money to be made from this type of project. Indeed, Gene Bauer sent her books (there was usually a print run of 50) free to her fellow flower enthusiasts; she bore all the printing costs herself. 

Bauer did her initial drawings with colored pencils and then hand-screened them on papers of various weights. This is not traditional botanical drawing; the shapes are simple and bold, with a strong graphic sensibility, many of the colors brighter than you’d expect. There is a strong Modernist influence, though no abstraction, of course. The essays are well-researched appreciations; she does not pretend to add new botanical knowledge. 

The only reason this book is even possible is that the people who received the booklets saved them. Bauer’s house and collection was destroyed in a fire in 1997; friends returned their copies to replace the lost booklets and then this collection of all of them was created, by map publishers (who now specialize in geographic software) ESRI. 

I would love to have a book like this with drawings of New York State wildflowers. As Amy’s Wicked Plants demonstrates so well, drawings of plants bring out subtleties of shape and form as no other medium can.

How to pet your toad

Via a site you are all probably familiar with, Icanhazcheezburger. I have always longed for a toad and maybe a couple of newts for my pond area, but they don't seem to hang out here naturally, and if I bought them from the pet store, then I would have the winter maintenance trauma. (I'm already afraid to ask my friend who is keeping my fish if they are still alive.)

Austin gardeners, I know, are lucky enough to have lots of cute toads. 

A Cover Is Born

I love this behind-the-scenes post about the process of choosing a cover for Debra Lee Baldwin's new book. Check it out at Gardening Gone Wild, and while you're there, have a look at Saxon Holt's beautiful images of bare branches against a winter sky.

The Best Cover of 2009?

Wow.  Wicked Plants is up for Amazon.com's Best Cover of the Year.  After an initial round of voting, it's made its way into the top ten.  If you've got a minute, I'd appreciate your vote--and tell your friends!

Go here to vote.

Some of the best holiday lighting isn't about the holidays at all

My favorite holiday-season light displays are the ones put on by our great public gardens. Longwood comes to mind, and Lewis Ginter in Virginia.  And here in Maryland it feels like magic in the Brookside Gardens' Garden of Lights with its 940,000 (mostly LED) lights and tons of imagination.  It celebrates the garden, not Christmas, so is welcoming to people of all religions (or none). 

 

To all our American readers, Happy Thanksgiving!

Garden Photographers Get Creative

In response to my post about garden photographers bringing in some extra cash by selling their art as notecards or in some other artsy format, I heard from Jeff Friesen, who offers prints of his work for sale through his Etsy shop.

It's lovely work, priced at only $30 for an 8 x 10 image, ready to frame.

What do you think?  Any other garden photographers out there experimenting with Etsy as a way to sell prints?

Leaf Art. Why not?

By illustrator Christoph Niemann, in today's NY Times.

What's a Garden Photographer To Do?

This story that ran in the San Francisco Chronicle a couple months ago got me thinking about the fate of garden photographers in the digital age. Used to be that a photographer could spend a lifetime shooting plants and gardens, keep them filed and organized and cataloged according to color, (correct) plant name, location, and any number of other categories, and hope that an editor would call and want to see some slides.  Off the slides would go, and maybe later a check would arrive.  Over time, that catalog of images would only get more valuable.  It's a retirement plan, right?

Well, it didn't work out that way.  Nowadays, as that Chron story points out, editors are all too happy to jump on Flickr and find a workable image for a fraction of the price. Amateurs are happy to pocket a few bucks, and do the readers know the difference?  I wold argue that they do--we all know the difference between gorgeous, perfect plant porn and that awful low-res garden photograph shot in garish sunlight with no plant names in the caption--but that's not what I'm thinking about today.

Today I'm thinking about Zazzle. And CafePress.  And Blurb.

If I was a photographer with an extraordinary catalog of gorgeous images, I'd be taking a serious look at Zazzle right about now.  In less than a minute you can upload an image to a notecard design and add your text to the back.  It doesn't take much longer to build a calendar.  You get fifty cents or a dollar or two dollars whenever something sells.  It doesn't sound like much, but that's about what we get in book royalties. And who wouldn't want to have cards, calendars, or even mousepads, mugs, or a cute little coffee table book, with art by a photographer like Saxon Holt or Rob Cardillo or David Perry?

(Not to pick on those three, but hey, they're amazing.  They have a fan base.)

And if I was an author with a book full of photographs I'd taken myself (think Debra Lee Baldwin or Scott Calhoun) I'd be thinking about a set of notecards or a calendar based on the book.  Take a few samples to garden clubs so they can see what they look like, and send them home with a little slip of paper that explains how to order them online. No inventory, no boxes to haul, and a little free advertising for your books moves through the garden community.  I buy twelve cards and send them out to friends--that's twelve more people finding out about the book.

In some cases, photographers don't have the rights to the images.  Let's hope that changes.  Given the state of publishing, we should all be able to retain as many rights as possible and try to make a buck.

It's also true that making money at something like Zazzle takes time and effort, but the more successful photographers out there already have a website, a blog, an email newsletter, and so forth. Why not add this to the mix?

Is anybody out there doing this?  If so, post a comment with a link and let me know if I have permission to show one of your images here at GardenRant in a future post (just in time for the holidays!)

An icon to suit every taste

It’s always best to tread lightly when discussing garden statuary that doesn’t totally suck, but I was intrigued by some emails I received discussing a trend toward “spiritual” rather than “religious” imagery for the garden (especially among genX gardeners). The difference between the two words for me has always been that “spiritual” can be applied to just about anything—art, food, paperclips, whatever—without needing to define what is meant.

But I can see what the marketing gurus are after here. What if you want to express your belief—or at least interest—in a higher/different power/mythological system without using a crucifix or madonna to do it? Then one of these vaguely Asian-themed objects might be appropriate. I don’t know if I would have them, but they fit my criteria of not sucking. HT Garden Center magazine.

I chose the least specifically "spiritual" of the objects. There were also plenty of nice Buddhas and so on.