Human Flower Project

Art & Media

Thursday, November 18, 2004

Flower Mandalas—Bring Out Your Inner Bee


imageDavid Bookbinder’s gallery of flower mandalas is one of the most fascinating displays of contemporary flower art on the web. Take a look, and you’re off to gazanialand, circling a rugosa rose, in orbit above Queen Anne’s Lace, out and inward, other directions too.

Congratulations, David. And thank you for permitting us to post your marvelous artwork. (Left: “Pink Dahlia”)


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“I work as a psychotherapist, often with artists, and display some of these images in my treatment room. From time to time my clients mention them and they become part of the discussion, usually when artists are talking about difficulties they are having with their creative process, sometimes in a spiritual context. The combination of natural elements (the photographs of flowers that these images are based on) and digital manipulation into the mandala form seems both to stimulate and to relax.

image

Lily

“My personal motivation in creating this work, however, was to heal from a decade of physical and emotional trauma. Subconsciously, I arrived at the mandala form with the hexagram—the Star of David—as its organizing shape. I believe my choice of the hexagram was no accident. In many traditions, this star, composed of two overlapping triangles, represents the reconciliation of opposites—male/female, fire/water, and so on. Their combination symbolizes unity and harmony. The six points of the Star of David are also said, in the Jewish tradition, to stand for God’s rule over the universe in all six directions: north, south, east, west, up and down. I have always been interested in patterns of light and color. Working with these forms by painting with light—the literal definition of the term “photography”—has helped bring me back into the light.”

image

Gazania



Posted by Julie on 11/18 at 12:48 PM
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Thursday, November 11, 2004

V-6 Orchid, Leave It to the French


Renault says its “Fluence” was design-inspired by flowers. But can you get spare parts for it?


imageA “concept” car”? That’s how Renault describes the new Fluence. Its shapes and even some of its functions, the auto company says, were derived from “exotic plants, including orchids and cactus.” (Cactus, exotic? West Texans, please take note.)

“‘We cut them up and looked at them under microscopes,’ explained Patrick le Quement, Renault senior vice president of corporate design. ‘We looked at time-lapse photography of plants and watched them slowly transform themselves. They were the inspiration.’”

A little fairy dust francais and you’re not driving to the supermarket but tripping the phloem fantastic “Its ethereal design resembles a leaf that has been rolled then nipped at its centre. This leaf theme is repeated in the design of the centre console. In a spiral movement it embraces the intuitive Touch Design controls.” And if that’s not enough, “The front seats of the Fluence unfurl like a flower. When you open the door, the seat bolsters and side unfold. When you close the door, they fold up, gently hugging the body.” C’est a dire, Le Flytrap Venus.

It being Armistice Day and all, I’m thinking of Paris 1918 and the cultural movement that indirectly brought you orchid cars. European artists in shock over WWI determined to liberate themselves from the nationalist traditions and “reason” that had slaughtered hundreds of thousands of its sons. Surrealism grew up in Paris around writers Andre’ Breton and Paul Eluard and continued to evolve in the visual arts of De Chirico in Italy, Dali in Spain.

Le papillon philosophique

Se pose sur l’etoile rose.


          from “Hotel des Etincelles,” Andre’ Breton

The philosophic butterfly

Rests on the rose star.


        from   “Hotel of Sparks”


Realism having led to the trenches, the Surrealists proclaimed another kind of imagining was in order, one that welcomed dreams and the streaming irrationalities of star roses and, yes, orchid cars.

What’s happened to that Surrealist manifesto, that in 1924 swore its dedication to supplant the cruel mechanics of “realism” with imaginings of “destiny”? Fluence tells the story. The creative derangments originally “designed” to challenge fascism and war now serve as advertising techniques, to make a car more than a car: exotic, living, “hugging.” 

Renault’s VP Patrick le Quément announces, “Fluence is both a drawing and a sculpture. It blends bearing, generosity, elegance and fluidity.” And while we’re at it, how about “destiny”? 

image

Soft Construction with Boiled Beans

Premonition of Civil War

Salvador Dali, 1936

(a.k.a.  Not Ready for the Showroom Floor)



Posted by Julie on 11/11 at 11:10 AM
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Tuesday, November 09, 2004

Monet’s Overalls


A new Zurich exhibition of Claude Monet’s garden paintings discloses that the Impressionist master was a master of impression management.


In the latest example of “gotcha” art history, curators at Zurich’s Kunsthaus have mounted “Monet’s Garden,” 71 garden paintings on loan from U.S. and European collections, public and private.

A piece in today’s The Province (Vancouver, Canada) is not so much a review of the show as a summation of the catalogue’s disclosures about Monet’s talent for public relations. “In his few contacts with journalists, Monet cultivated his image of being a reclusive artist whose studio was outside in nature. However, most of his works were completed indoors. It was an ‘image created by a man who consistently exploited the media to his advantage,’ a catalog biography notes.”

The Kunsthaus curators have collected receipts and other homely documents to prove that Monet “gave daily, detailed instructions to his gardeners, had precise plans for planting and owned numerous books on botany. Carbon copies of delivery bills list more than 30 different plants, some of them quite expensive.” Eventually Monet has six gardeners on staff.

So the old man in the shaggy beard and crumpled hat actually didn’t prune every one of those “Paul’s Scarlet” roses himself or feed each water lily in the Giverny ponds. How could he, and have gotten so much painting done?

image

Claude Monet, Water Lilies

(1903) Private Collection

I haven’t read the exhibition catalogue but it seems to me that Monet’s “exploitation of the media” may have been his more lasting legacy to the world of art. Living in an era of conceptualism, we should be less shocked than “impressed” by an artist who understood that creating images could consist of more than pigment. Hats off to you, old man. Loosening up your brushstroke was one kind of achievement; convincing the public you were painting “nature” was quite another.



Posted by Julie on 11/09 at 04:12 PM
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An Embrace of Spines


A Muslim apologist trades flowers for barbs.


Today’s edition of Muslim Wake Up announces the launch of Cactus Flower: “letters, poems, articles and a melange of mad features devoted mainly (though not exclusively) to loving people who say unkind things about the Muslim faith.”

image Yakoub Islam writes that the murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh inspired him to take this step. “I previously concurred with the foray and clamour to condemn those who insulted, vilified or misrepresented Islam. I henceforth renounce this strategy as contributing to the cycle of mistrust, hatred and violence. From this day forth, I will send poems and flowers to those who revile me, insha Allah.”

Islam chose the cactus to represent his reconciliation effort – “it can be prickly and even inhospitable….Some are hardy and rugged while others require tender loving care to survive….Their flowers are exquisite. It is said Theo van Gogh liked to give a cactus as a gift.”

Van Gogh’s films challenged many forms of dogmatism.

Good luck to you, Yakoub Islam.

Here’s a photo of what should be the Texas state flower: prickly pear cactus.



Posted by Julie on 11/09 at 10:34 AM
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