Macro Monday - Bouquets to Art 2011

As I mentioned in my previous posts about Bouquets to Art at the De Young Museum in San Francisco, this year's exhibition one of my favorites. One reason is that several floral artists have selected works of art that I don't recall being chosen before.

I have always adored this pair of small paintings by Thomas Waterman Wood and was delighted that Market Woman was tapped.

Fleur de Vie floral designer Talin Tascian created a spectacular floral twin using the king protea's petals for her shawl and its silver flower heads in her shopping basket. Her apron was composed of woven flax (hala) leaves and her skirt black ti leaves. 

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I have walked by this beautiful fireplace mantel countless times and never noticed that the legs were carved dogs, until Grace Street Floral  made it patently obvious.

I imagine that Rhonda Stoffel had a blast choosing the materials for this whimsical sculpture. Rust hypericum berries (St. John's Wort), white tallow berries, and succulents were great choices for the face. I will never look at the under side of a magnolia leaf again without thinking that it looks just like the velvety ear of a dog. In fact, I believe I will be hounded by this image. 

Update - Rhonda Stoffel wrote me and shared this:

Yes he WAS super fun to make — I’ve been wanting to do something with those crazy-amazing dogs for AGES and was excited to finally have the opportunity to do so ( as usually the person who chooses that piece highlights something with the TOP part of the mantel - with more of the deer motif) — The dogs finally got their proper 15 minutes of fame!

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The initial inspiration for David Regan's Cod Tureen dates all the way back to biblical times in the Gospel of James where the metaphor of big fish eating little fish was used to illustrate the rich exploiting the poor*. In the mid-sixteenth century, Pieter Breugel the Elder depicted this story in a painting. Pieter van der Heyden, in turn, created the companion engraving in 1557. David Regan formed the ceramic version in 1997.

Thierry Chantrel of La Follia created the most recent incarnation...

...nearly 400 years after tulip mania and using the marine currency of sand dollars .

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Though it is refreshing to see new works of art interpreted, it is still exciting to visit the perennial favorites. Some of you may recall the 2009 interpretation of James Bard's The Steamship Syracuse. This year, College of San Mateo's C. Diana Vigil and floristry students did an admirable job echoing the Mississippi steamboat with blue delphiniums, white roses, and phaleonopsis orchids.

In 2009, the window of Job Lots Cheap was the emphasis. This year, this trompe l'oeil was enhanced by Nancy Liu Chin's literary contribution:



Sunshine Flowers and Event Design literally weighs the question: "Why compare apples and oranges?" on a vintage scale...

... in response to William Rickarby Miller's Still Life -- Study of Apples, 1862 and William Joseph McCloskey's Oranges in Tissue Paper, ca. 1890.

I hope that Marisse Newell's fantastic interpretation of Winter Festival conjures up images from the distant past for you...

...and that instead, you are looking out your window to newly sprung blossoms, like these arranged by Ikebana International.

Paradise Flowers' amaryllis blossoms are a great red-headed representation for Robert Henri's "The Lady in Black with Spanish Scarf", 1910.

Emil Yanos thought out of the box when he complemented The Blue Veil with a striking abstract sculpture.

See more Macro Monday images here and stay tuned for more stunning images from the 2011 Bouquets to Art in upcoming posts.
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* Source: Wiki and The Met

Macro Monday - Emulating Irving Penn

I've shown you my attempt to channel Paul Cézanne and also one Irving Penn emulation.  Here are a few more photos I turned in for my Beginning Photography class. Our excellent and passionate instructor, Moshe Quinn, gave us an assignment to emulate, but not copy exactly, a photographer or other artist.

Late in his career, Penn photographed took many large-format botanical photographs on a clean white surface. He used exceptionally long exposures with pinhole apertures and experimented with elaborate printing techniques. A great article on Penn's printing techniques can be found here.

IRVING PENN (1917 - 2007)

Ginkgo Leaves, New York, 1990

IRVING PENN (1917 - 2007)

Tuberous Begonia

Here are my emulations:

One of my classmates named her project "It's a Lot Harder Than It Looks!". No kidding. Considering this was my first attempt, I'm not going to complain too much. Thank you, Moshe, for this inspiring assignment. I did learn that I'm very interested in pursuing studio photography and creating more still lifes. Next time I will pay more attention to the lighting.

View more Macro Monday images at lisaschaos.com here. This is my first time posting on Lisa Gordon's Creative Exchange here. 

Macro Monday: Radicchio

Radicchio - Leaf Chicory (Cichorium intybus)

Two reasons that are keeping me from blogging as much as I would wish are that I've been ill for the past two weeks and I'm taking a beginning photography class that is consuming most of my available time. Last week our assignment was to emulate, but not copy exactly, a famous photographer or other artist. I chose to emulate photographer Irving Penn (1917 - 2009). In 1980, he published "Flowers" after working on the book for seven summers. This beautiful purple tulip was his cover image:

Photo by Irving Penn

I did not have time to run up to the flower mart to find tulips, but I thought the radicchio was a close enough approximation. To teach us the discipline to frame during a shot rather than in post-production, cropping is not permissible for this class. I would have probably cropped my image square, like Penn's tulip.

See more of Irving Penn's flowers here. My other emulations are here and visit other Macro Monday posts here. 

Macro Monday - Green Glass Pumpkin

Here is my post from last year, stay tuned for this year's Great Glass Pumpkin Patch. This green pumpkin is just to whet your appetite. To see more macro images, visit Lisa at Lisa's Chaos. 

Macro Monday - Red Currants

Red currants (Ribes rubrum) observed at Norwegian Museum of Cultural History  (Norsk Folkemuseum) at Bygdøy  in Oslo, Norway. I have fond memories of eating fresh red currants with vanilla pudding during my childhood in Amsterdam.

For other Macro Monday images, please visit Lisa here. 

Macro Monday - Oseberg Detail

When I was trolling through reviewing my Norway photos for my next post, I ran across this detail of the Oseberg ship. I rejected it for the post I wrote because it was out of focus. I like how the photo shows off the original rivets and the craftsmanship of the woodcarver.  I decided to fiddle around with the sharpen settings in PhotoShop and came up with this. It's still not great, but what do you think? You can see it larger here. Should I have published this? Here's the original picture; click to enlarge it.

See other Macro Monday posts at Lisa's Chaos. 

Macro Monday - Oslo Opera House (Operahuset)

I didn’t know what to expect, but I suppose I was thinking along the lines of the Sydney Opera House with its iconic silhouette. Thus I was surprised to see the understated presence of the Oslo Opera House, rising from the waters of the Oslofjord, blending with its environment rather than striking a new profile.

As we approached, my sister remarked, “Are there people walking on the roof?”

Indeed they were. The architects at Snøhetta created a seamless transition between the ground level and the rooftop. I quickened my pace, wanting to claim that I effortlessly scaled the building to the roof like Spiderman.

The white Carrara marble’s rough texture provided enough friction to comfortably climb the incline.

I imagined that if this building was built in California, the building codes would have forced unsightly railings in all places where there might be a remote chance that someone may get hurt. Here in Oslo, a mere small sign gave a cautionary warning.

At the top I was faced with a stark white synthetic snowscape glistening in the sun.

The aluminum-clad building looked like a cubic igloo...

... of grand proportion.

A closer look revealed that the aluminum is punched with a pleasing pattern of concave conical dimples and convex hemispherical blisters...

... each contributing to a texture of shadows.

Turning the corner, I took in the view of the Oslofjord where a giant cruise ship towered over the waterfront...

...and a stately double-masted schooner motored out, proudly waving its Norwegian banner:

Monica Bonvicini’s glass sculpture “She Lies” floated at the head of the fjord...

...and pivoted on her axis to show her many angles:

 “Das Eismeer” (1823-1824) by Caspar David Friedrich

At first glance, I thought the sculpture looked like a schooner with her sails unfurled. I later learned that Venice-born Bonvicini won the international competition by using a famous German Romantic Landscape painting “Das Eismeer” (1823-1824) by Caspar David Friedrich as inspiration.

This ambitious installation is strong enough to withstand the harsh elements of the Norwegian winters.




As I descended back to the ground level, I enjoyed seeing the reflection of the traditional silhouettes on the waterfront onto the ultra-modern sleek glass surface of the Opera House.

The Oslo Opera House is meant to be the anchor to spur on urban revitalization. While it's well on its way...

...I hope to come back one day to see the vision set forth by the architects at Snøhetta come to fruition.

Copyright: Snøhetta for Statsbygg.

See other Macro Monday posts at Lisa's Chaos.

Update: To see some great interior shots of the Operahuset, go to Ginnie's blog post here.