Human Flower Project

Saturday, December 31, 2005

Kadomatsu—Welcoming Japan’s New Year

Chimes, brown noodles in broth, and arrangements of pine and bamboo signal a fresh start in Japan.

Kadomatsu
Photo: Japanese Festivals

Shogatsu has arrived already in Japan. Happy New Year!

This is perhaps the grandest Japanese holiday of all. Throughout late December, Japanese companies have held bonenkai parties, to “forget the year.” One blogger observes that these binge-fests of food and drink are paradoxical: they celebrate “all the stuff you want to leave behind you as you look forward to a new year. Then again it seems like all the silliness you want to forget about is what you end up doing at the bonenkai itself.” Here are some bonenkai revelers feeling no pain.

Shogatsu/New Year’s Day (the word actually means “January") is marked with many more delicious and decorous customs that, unless you’re allergic to pine, won’t cause a hangover. The kadomatsu is our favorite.  Bamboo stalks, sliced diagonally across the top, are decorated with pine, and other plants—nandina, plum branches, purple cabbages…—all bound with straw. These beautiful winter arrangements are set like sentinels by entryways, to receive spiritual blessing and attract goodness.

One commentator writes, “A majestic evergreen pine tree grows into a tall, towering tree, so it is used as a symbol of longevity. Bamboo is a very strong plant that grows very straight and tall with a sturdy root structure, so it is thought of as a symbol of prosperity. The plum tree is not only neat and clean but also withstands the cold patiently and constantly, so it is considered to be a symbol of constancy.” The kadomatsu captures these virtues and may bring them to all who work or dwell within.

Fujio Kaneko
and the kadomatsu he designed
for the Honolulu Academy of Arts
Photo: Craig T. Kojima

The kadomatsu—like so many human flower projects—serves many purposes at once: decoration, invitation and prayer.

This article from the Honolulu Star Bulletin explains how to make one correctly. For example, one should use only odd numbers of each plant, and the bamboo should be sliced at various heights, all steeply angled “to allow the spirits to enter.” This article, too, gives precise instructions.

“The bamboo legs must come in contact with the foundation of the home. A table, basket or container holding the bamboo is considered bad luck and should be avoided when placing your kadomatsu outside. It should never enter the home.” Further, the kadomatsu considered luckiest were traditionally made “only by men,” maybe because cutting and tying big bamboo takes superstrength, maybe because otherwise the customary shogatsu foods wouldn’t make it to the table.

Kadomatsu seem to decorate homes and businesses, but the making of these beautiful winter emblems isn’t limited to men or even adults.

Kadomatsu with zigzag paper (gohei)
Photo: Gary Akiko

For your New Year’s enjoyment, here are several photos from Kyoto and one with a handsome terrier.

Special greetings to our friends Masashi, in Japan, and Eishi, in the U.S. And wishes for prosperity, longevity, and constancy to all this Shogatsu 2006.

Friday, December 30, 2005

Poder Popular

In California, where most U.S. cut-flowers grow, a new program aims to improve the lives of agricultural workers.

Troubled fields
Photo: Pested.org

It wasn’t by chance that the National Farm Workers, led by Cesar Chavez, staged its first strike (1965) in the flower fields of McFarland, California. The Golden State made $1 billion off its flowers last year, and the industry, though better than in many parts of the world, is still rife with problems.

In California, “flowers and other ornamentals ranked sixth among all crops causing pesticide illnesses, according to data compiled by the California Department of Pesticide Regulation. In San Mateo County, 23 percent of all pesticide poisonings occurred in the flower industry.”

A statewide survey of agricultural workers “Suffering in Silence” (2000) found that many farmworkers are malnourished; others fail to seek medical help for fear of deportation. The report concluded “that the vast majority of California’s agricultural workers are at serious risk for life-threatening chronic diseases, and that they have little or no access to health care.”

A new program—Poder Popular or “power to the people”—may “improve the workers’ health care, nutrition, housing and labor conditions and ...integrate them into the cities where they live.” San Diego is one of six regions with $600,000 in funding to bring improvements about. The project focuses on ”promotores,” community leaders and spokespeople.

“In the next six to eight months, the promotores, both men and women, will be trained in such topics as doctor visits, water quality, tenant/landlord laws and fair housing. They also will go into the fields and ask workers what other needs they have, possibly bringing cameras to document living and working conditions.”

We would welcome their photographs of California’s flower fields and farmworkers at the Human Flower Project.

Those who dismiss the issue of pesticides should check out the “Suffering in Silence” report, and consider these eerie photographs by Laurie Tumer. Call them to mind next time you’re tempted to shake or spray a little poison in the garden.

The Poder program is part of California’s Agricultural Worker Health Initiative.

Thursday, December 29, 2005

Darwin: Mindful of Flowers

A major exhibition shows how flowers first lured Charles Darwin into science and filled his final days.

Charles Darwin, age 7
Image: answers.com

Through the end of May 2006, the American Museum of Natural History once more exercises curatorial power—a form of intelligent design—with Darwin, exploring the life and work of modern science’s “Mr. Natural.”

The online exhibition is extensive, too, with even a meditative video of the discoverer’s daily walk.

We had associated Charles Darwin (1809-1882) with primates and big turtles, but now learn that his first studies were of flowers: “meticulous records” of blossoms he made as a 10 year old boy. His still-controversial The Origin of Species (1859) advanced theories of evolution and natural selection that, despite detractors, undergird the natural sciences today.

Over time Darwin’s theoretical mindset steadied but his focus shifted “from geology to zoology to botany.” When his daughter became ill, he moved to Down House nearer the sea and became engrossed studying wild orchids. “Native species bloomed everywhere. This abundance delighted Darwin, who saw in the ‘wonderful creatures’ a perfect case of natural selection at work. He recognized the intricate shapes of orchid flowers for what they were: adaptations that allowed the orchids to receive their insect pollinators as a lock receives a key.”

Care to immerse yourself? Here is Darwin’s On the various contrivances by which British and foreign orchids are fertilised by insects published in 1862.

Angraecum sesquipedale
Photo: Netrax

One species that inflamed his curiosity was Angraecum sesquipedale, of Madagascar, an orchid with a throat 12 inches long. “‘Astounding,’ Darwin wrote, of this strange adaptation. ‘What insect could suck it?’” He theorized an insect capable of pollinating this rare beauty and, yes, forty years after Darwin died, entomologists discovered the giant hawk moth that does exactly that. Xanthopan morganii praedicta ”hovers like a hummingbird as its long, whip-like proboscis probes for the distant nectar.”

We also find interesting the form of Darwin’s workday. According to the museum’s curators, he “rose early and walked in the garden before breakfast. He worked until 9:30, when he spent an hour in the drawing room, listening to family letters being read. He resumed work in the study, then at noon walked, rain or shine, around the Sandwalk.” Afternoons were devoted to answering letters and reading.

“My life goes on like clockwork,” he wrote, “and I am fixed on the spot where I shall end it.” Like a flower.

Wednesday, December 28, 2005

Broadcast Love

In India, radio and TV greetings are supplanting flowers this season.

Cosmic Awakening
by Lynnette Cook
Photo: Nova Space

An intriguing story from the Deccan Herald today says that bubbly DJs have become the media for greetings, business that until recently belonged to flower sellers. Consider: Would you prefer a vase of lilies or your name squawked over FM?

Brij Mohan Khanagwal, president of All India Cut Flower, said the situation looks gloomy. ‘’Ten years ago, we used to do roaring business during New Year and Christmas. But with the coming of a number of FM radio and television channels, Asia’s largest flower market here is doing lean business, as people prefer sending their wishes through them.’’

Khanagwal said the Delhi flower market has shrunk by 20% in the past five years—ominous. Meanwhile, TV and radio have set aside whole programs for personal greetings; “FM Gold airs ‘Subah ki Chal’ twice a week.”

We remember radio interludes like these from our own teen years (the 1960s)—the equivalent of passing notes on the air. Also, WLOU had a “prayer line” during its morning gospel music show, and there are still a fair number of small radio stations (we hope) with features like “Swap Shop.” ("I got a 120 gallon propane tank, in good shape, also a pair of guineas to sell. Call Buddy....")

But how could airwaves supplant anemones? We’re reminded of what Mark Knox, longtime florist of Odessa, Texas, told us. The Society of American Florists, he said, had polled customers and learned “that self-recognition is one of the main reasons people send flowers.” Sending flowers may please you, and it also makes me look good.

May we suggest that our friends in India forego radio greetings this holiday. Please send your sweethearts flowers. Don’t you know “self-recognition” is the stuff of blogs?

Saturday, December 24, 2005

Portia Munson

Floral kaleidescopes bring spring back into view.

Portia Munson
Morning Glory Tobacco (2005)
Photo: PPOW Gallery

Time to finish wrapping those iPods and earrings. Or maybe not.

As an alternative, consider unwinding instead with these amazing floral mandalas by New York artist Portia Munson. “Icons of evanescence,” Jeanette Fitz calls them.

Munson’s show at PPOW Gallery has just come to a close, but for those of us too late or too far from Manhattan, the gallery generously posts several of Munson’s photo-scans.

This artist made a splash in the art world with Pink (1994), an installation of found plastic objects, and became known for her dumpster diving. In recent years, the search for art materials has led to a more intimate and earthy source: her garden in the Catskills.

Obviously, these pieces were made in another season, which in part makes them all the more impressive now. Her image of nicotina (tobacco flower) blossoms and morning glory buds may not qualify as a “Star of might,” but “Star of wonder”?  Indeed.

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Zimbabwe Push

The central bank and national board on exports promise infusions of money for Zimbabwe’s flower industry.

Zimbabwe flower farm
Photo: BBC

To draw foreign currency into the country and exploit the nation’s floriculture advantages, both natural and human, Zimbabwe’s Reserve Bank and Export Processing Zones Authority are setting aside $750 billion to improve the flower industry there.

“Skilled and former operators would be given a special dispensation and guarantees of uninterrupted productive tenure of five to 10 years.” In recent years, many ethnic-European farmers have been dispossessed in Zimbabwe’s version of land reform, but the new program seems to guarantee governmental protections for big agriculture, underwriting greenhouses, better irrigation, rose propagation, refrigeration, and marketing for experienced growers. Even so, the longterm strategy seems to be to educate native Zimbabwe farmers in floriculture. The chief of the reserve bank in May “called on former operators of horticultural estates to work closely with new farmers to expedite the skills transfer process.”

Zimbabwe’s flower industry has shrunk in recent years, declining from” 24,000 tonnes of flowers worth US$86 million” in 2002 to less than 20,000 tonnes this year. “The central bank said the entire horticultural industry is targeted to contribute US$166 million in foreign exchange this year, representing 37 percent of agricultural export earnings.”

Along with changes on the production side, Zimbabwe’s flower exports are reaching new markets. In the past, its flowers all sold through the Holland auctions, but this year Zimbabwe began exporting blooms to the Far East, and “indications are that Zimbabwe could clinch a lucrative deal to supply the bulk of horticultural products to Dubai auction floors scheduled to be opened early next year.”

The Chronicle writes that Zimbabwe crops have “an edge” over produce in other parts of the world since Zimbabwe’s vegetables and flowers “are not genetically modified.”

Sunday, December 18, 2005

Waltz of the Flowers

Marksmen mice and dancing flowers, the Nutcracker was first performed December 18, 1892 in St. Petersburg.

Jennifer Kuhn, Waltz of the Flowers, Boulder Ballet
Photo: David Andrews

It’s not likely that Russians pine for Christmas in July; Springtime in December is the stuff of dreams.

And 113 years ago composer Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and choreographers Marius Petitpa and Lev Ivanov made that possible. The Nutcracker ballet a century later can be a respite from the horrors—climatological, financial, psychic—of the season.

The story was adapted from E.T.A. Hoffman’s 1816 play, “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King”… “a tale of an unhappy girl named Marie whose only love is a nutcracker doll.” This was pre-Freud, mind you.

French novelist Alexandre Dumas rewrote the German play, making it sweeter and more musketeerish. With this version of the tale, Petitpa got to work, commissioning a less than enthusiastic Tchaikovsky to write the music.

Among the most music-boxed compositions from the ballet is the Waltz of the Flowers, one of many dances performed in ACT III to entertain Clara in the Kingdom of Sweets. The piece has been adapted by several other musicians, including Duke Ellington. Here’s a mini-course on the music itself.

But we haven’t found any commentary on the role of flowers in the ballet. We find it interesting that the Waltz of the Flowers comes between a Waltz of Snowflakes and the dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy. It’s as if in one night’s vision Clara dreams her way out of winter, into the flowers of spring and the fruit of summer. Has anyone staged the ballet to accentuate this kaleidescope of seasons?

The Nutcracker, San Francisco Ballet
Photo: Weiland Watts

We don’t think so. One reviewer even bemoaned springtime imagery in the San Francisco Ballet’s production: “No pink costumes next year, please! Petal pink is not about Christmas!” But is the Nutcracker “about Christmas”? In our view, this critic has missed the wonder of Clara’s dream—escape from the Russian winter.

“The Waltz of the Flowers” is a chance for the corps de ballet to flutter and shine. Here’s a sound snippet in case you’ve forgotten the tune: click on # 12 here for a burst of May.

Friday, December 16, 2005

Da Lat—Love Buses and Lily Roots

A city in the highlands of Vietnam pins its hopes on flower tourism.

Decorated carriage
Da Lat Flower Festival

Pasadena meets Niagara Falls.

Da Lat, long a destination of Vietnamese travelers, has been hosting a nine-day flower festival, a pull-off-the-petals spectacle intended to draw tourists from around the globe and establish a name for the area’s flowers.

Northern Vietnam’s climate is ideal for flower production, and recent assistance to small growers has helped them improve bloom quality and diversity, better to ride out the vagaries of the market. At opening ceremonies, nine major growers, including Hasfarm, were honored as “flower artists” for their floral enterprise. Meanwhile, across Xuan Huong Lake, a thousand dancers in “cherry silk” costumes performed on a floating stage. Let the rubber-necking begin!

In the past week there have been a parade of flower-decorated cars, carts and scooters, a beauty pageant, and “trail of 900,000 flower pots.” More Viet-centric events included “the performance of Chim Canh Cut (Penguin) band, made up of 20 of Vietnam’s shortest musicians,” and a mass wedding, expected to hitch 128 couples.

Along with its “flower city” reputation, Da Lat has been considered a romantic getaway, though plans for the mass wedding note unorthodox techniques for arousal. Couples coming from Ho Chi Minh City could arrive on “love buses.” All the sweethearts were to “gather around a 2.7m-high ‘Love Apple.’ made from iron and bamboo” and compete in “love-letter writing.”

Opening ceremonies
Da Lat Flower Fest 2005

Lest you think flowers were lost amid all this hullabaloo, there was what sounded like a quite high-intensity conference last Saturday on “Promotion of Flower Tourism.” Tsutomu Takebe of Japan led the symposium of “dignitaries and politicians from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.” The Japanese delegation alone included 100 “lawmakers and tourist industry representatives.”

In the 1950s, before the war, flower growing was a source of recreation in the highlands. “Now people plant flowers for trade and not, as it used to be, for enjoyment,” said Le Van Lang, who farms in An Lac.

Many small growers here think flowers are too risky, but as Lang and others find success, farmers are making the switch from rice cultivation to “daisies, lilies, orchids, roses and gerberas.” Vietnam exported “about $6.2 million” in flowers last year to Japan alone, “accounting for 1.4% of Japan’s total flower imports.” Production of lilies from Dutch root stock looks especially promising.

In today’s market, however, it’s not enough to grow beautiful flowers and sell them at a reasonable price. The Da Lat festival says so. As well as gorgeous healthy blooms, there must be Guinness world records set, “love planes” landing, and a performance by “Quoc Cuong, who ate snakes and frogs and broke a 25kg rock to pieces as it fell from a 3m height with his bare hand.”

Thursday, December 15, 2005

Fulla

The Arabian flower with a B-cup is darling of the Middle East.

Fulla

In the Muslim world, girls are looking past December 25 to the Eid al-Adha holiday in January, as visions of Fulla, and her passel of Islamic accessories, dance in their heads.

Modest breasts, no date for the prom, a hijab (or head scarf), and minimal make-up, Fulla is Muslim Barbie. “More than 1.3 million dolls, at $16 each, have been sold since the toy hit the shelves in November 2003.”

She’s a Human Flower Project because of her name, which is Arabic for (we think) Jasminium sambac. The stylized drawings on Fulla’s pink packaging look like jasmine blooms, but because Yasmine is also a popular female name in parts of the Middle East, we find the floral identity of “Fulla” a bit perplexing. One site says the name means gardenia, another refers to a flower of the Levant “often made into garlands.” Arabic readers, please help us out.

In any case, Fulla’s pink heels take another small step for Western hegemony. If you can’t beat ‘em, sell ‘em. The Central Intelligence Agency appears outdated; to overcome evil-doers, a la Foucault, better to decentralize and short-circuit the intellect all together, going straight to the primal desire for miniature handbags, pink jeans and prayer rugs.

Susan Taylor Martin of the St. Petersburg Times has done an especially fine job of following Fulla from her introduction a year ago to her new sidekicks “Yasmeen and Nada” and (with a feint toward Hinduism) her latest incarnations: Singing Fulla and “Walking Fulla, pushing a luggage cart with suitcases to hold the dozens of seasonal outfits that crowd her closet.”

The doll, like Barbie, is made in China, but sold by a company in Damascus called NewBoy. A representative of the firm says Fulla was developed “to reflect Arab values....She’s not only a sexy lady, but she’s honest, loving and caring and respects her mother and father.” Barbie was loving and caring, wasn’t she? (Was she?) Well, she sure wanted sidekicks and “dozens of seasonal outfits.”

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Ahau—Mayan Flower

Archaeologists have uncovered a masterpiece of Mayan art in Guatemala, proof this civilization was “in full flower more than 2000 years ago.”

Detail from mural found at San Bartolo, Guatemala
Photo: National Geographic Society

An exciting story today describes “the oldest intact mural ever found in Meso-America,” a painting 30 ft. long discovered below a pyramid in the Petin jungle of Northern Guatemala. The mural depicts “the son of the Corn God establishing land, water and air, and paradise in the east where the sun rises,” and in adjacent panels, the Corn God’s coronation, death and resurrection. Prof. William Saturno and his team have dated the San Bartolo painting from 150 B.C.

“The Mayans dominated southern Mexico and parts of Central America for some 1,500 years, ...until the Spanish conquered them 500 years ago.” The new find shows that the structures of Mayan society and culture were in place at least 500 years earlier than had been previously believed.

The descendants of the Maya still live in Southern Mexico and Guatemala, and recent political movements in this region have drawn both spirit and substance from the ancient empire, as today indigenos lay claim to the land and a quite literally illustrious heritage.

Ahau glyph (Flower)
Image: Mayan majix

The Maya were brilliant mathematicians. Their linguistic code was cracked only in fairly recent years, revealing a society based on kingship and a manifold system for measuring time. In tandem with a 365-day calendar, the Mayan tzolkin of 260 days “guided the daily rituals and cultural achievement of the people” and according to at least one source is “still in use today in some parts of Mexico and Guatemala.”

One of the 20 days cycling through the tzolkin was known as Ahau or Flower. One commentator explains, “The meanings of the day-sign Ahau are many: Lord, Sun, Flower, Marksman or Blowgunner” —as in English “flower” communicates not just “blossom,” but fertility, femininity, fulfillment, success....

Ahua: both “flower” and “Lord”
Ahau receives a floral bouquet
and wears a floral hat,
with hummingbird accent
(detail from a Mayan vase)
Photo: Justin Kerr

We don’t pretend to understand the cultural complexity of the ancient Maya, though we see evidence in many sources of contemporary fascination with Mayan belief, as well as Mayan mathematics, and of course the art.

One such enthusiast writes, “Mayan time conception is more sophisticated than the one presently in vogue among the ‘western’ cultures. It involves an approach or attitude of mutual involvement, overlapping inclusion, and adaptable pro-active problem solving, rather than ‘taking a stand,’ ‘sticking to our guns,’ or ‘peace through strength.’ The Maya enjoy a world-view free from the entrapments of dualistic thinking.”

We find such claims incompatible with a society based on kingship—for what could be more stringently dualistic than the conception of king/non-king? Yet discovery of the Petin mural proves about Mayan culture once again, “more will be revealed.”