It's Wide Open

The weekend is here and there are fabulous art shows to pick from here in Cleveland.

Heading out to enjoy!

I'll be back tomorrow with a few photos from Elle Decor's Modern Life Concept House

and a few other Blogfest 2012 treats.

Peeking

I guess that could mean several different things...

Today here is a little peek at what is causing me to smile when I walk in our garden. 

The poppies are loving this weather, stretching to reach the papyrus in the urn.

Our apricot roses are such a happy color with a hint of yellow at the base.

The Golden Celebration rose smells divine.

As do the softly romantic peach roses...

We are blessed!

What is growing in your gardens?

Gingko, As In Chairs

Stunning is how I would describe these creations of Claude Lalanne. While technically they are furniture, they seem more like sculptures.

Claude Lalanne, Parisian born and with a studio in Ury, France, did not come into her own until she was in her sixties. She and her husband, François-Xavier Lalanne (1927-2008), were known as Les Lalannes as they both worked and exhibited together, she creating garden-inspired works to his slightly surreal animal sculptures. 

 

Hortensia, gingko, cabbages- all worked their way into her works of cast bronze.

As you can tell, my favorite has been her gingko chairs.

But, I couldn't leave out one of her famous  cabbages: Choupatte Moyen, 2012. It is said that the cabbage sculpture was not complete until it received its chicken feet.

In New York City, Paul Kasmin Gallery presently has an exhibition of over 30 recent and historical works by both Claude and François-Xavier Lalanne which goes through 

June 16th, 2012. 

Rizzoli also just released CLAUDE & FRANÇOIS-XAVIER LALANNE: Art | Work | Life, 
a visual biography of their work with rare photographs taken by Paul Kasmin in their home and studio.

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The Bouquet

I have been in the special events industry for over twenty years and have been graced to work with an incredibly creative special events decorator during that time. 

Pieter Bouterse's work is up there with any famed floral decorator you can throw at me- of this, there is no doubt in my mind. His standards are high, his work ethic unequaled. (Did I say Picky?) Because of this, I guess you could call me jaded.

For me to write a post for Splenderosa's By Invitation Only on weddings is almost impossible. I could feed you photo after photo, but decided I best not. I narrowed it down to the flowers and, specifically, the bouquets. 

May I share with you just a small sampling of the bouquets Pieter has made in the past 9 months? 

Tradition is that Pieter always creates the bridal bouquet. I usually create the attendant bouquets, but that is open to discussion and/or a guest floral decorator. 

And did I tell you that one of the best parts of working a wedding is to hand the bridal party their bouquets right before they walk down the aisle?

Never fails to make me teary-eyed. 

By far, the most popular request for the bridal bouquet is all white. Here are a few:

Spring and summer tend to go perky and bright, lots of pink and lime.

 Fall and winter usually are somewhat darker, more serious. 

Equally as beautiful, though.

Of course, the wedding I recall most fondly was my daughter's almost three years ago. A reasonably sized bridal party was refreshing (don't get me started on that subject!), the weather finally cleared out an hour before the ceremony started and we had a blast!

 And, yes, Beth requested a large bouquet. Having worked with Pieter during college to earn spending money, she had seen many a bouquet and knew exactly what she wanted. It was gorgeous!

What are your favorite bouquets?

Subtle Harmonies

Enjoying the lighter, cleaner look of Stephen Sills, featured in the June, 2012 Elle Decor. Sills was requested by the client to "freshen up" the apartment, toning down the rather rich palette. Sills designed the living room's decorative wall treatments, a stencil repeated in various forms throughout.

The terra-cotta mirror frames and fireplace were painted and washed to add an instant softness. 

The striped wallpaper offers a nice contrast, framing the view into the living room.

Sills often renders the walls with interesting treatments. One of my favorites is the subtle vertical striations below. Doing this with wallpaper would just not work, unless the wallpaper was completely custom created, with each panel slightly different.

 

What wall treatments do you prefer these days?

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Tower of Bruxelles

La Tour de Bruxelles, 2008

How cool is this? Thinking how fun it would be to visit this building in Brussels, I tried to find out its location only to discover that it is a magical photo by photographer Eric DeVille. He created a series of three photographs, La Tour de Bruxelles, in which he reconstructed the city's building facades into a Tower of Babel, based on the 15th-century painting by Hieronymus Bosch. 

La Tour de Bruxelles en Automne, 2009

 La Tour de Bruxelles by Night, 2009

DeVille's photographs will be part of the exhibit opening on June 8th, BABEL at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Lille. The exhibition, “The Fantastic and the Fabulous in sixteenth-century Flemish landscape painting : Bosch, Bruegel, Bles and Bril” will reference the Tower of Babel in contemporary art, as addressed in paintings, photographs, sculptures, installations, films and original comic strips. It will close on January 14, 2013.

 

La Tour de Bruxelles en Hiver, 2010

I am always amazed at the creativity of people!

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Threading Softly

I recently attended "presence / absence", a show by local textile artist, Rebecca Cross, at the Morgan Conservatory  (Morgan Art of Papermaking Conservatory), a fascinating art center dedicated to the preservation of handmade papermaking and the art of the book. The folks there are so incredibly passionate about their art that they even grow their own kuzo (Japanese Mulberry tree) to create paper from.

Rebecca Cross teaches art and writing at the Kent State University School of Art in Kent, Ohio, where she received her MFA in Crafts in 2008. "presence / absence"

is Rebecca's commemoration of her daughter, Emma Rose Coleman, who died unexpectedly at age 19 last November. The show beautifully captures her range of emotions in both silk and paper.

Rebecca applies the traditional Japanese technique of shibori to silk organza, embedding the fibers with dyes (such as indigo) and twisting them into elaborate pleats and protrusions. In this sculpture, she included hawthorn branches from her own tree to provide the support.

During the summer of 2011, she was an artist in residence at the Morgan Paper Conservatory, learning the art and science of creating paper, with its variations of texture, color, strength and size.

Here the translucent organza is manipulated to create a landscape that mingles the silk sculptures with embedded paper sconces. Believe me, it took all of my will power not to touch!

My favorite sculpture was this row of dancing silk.

The powerfully emotional show includes references to the many shared moments with her daughter, including the gathering of the shale last fall in preparation for the exhibition. Little did she suspect that those memories would be dearly treasured. 

For those in the Cleveland area, "presence / absence" can be seen at the Morgan Conservatory Tuesdays to Saturdays through July 7, 2012.