Hagerstown Museum of Fine Arts hosts yearly Art in Bloom, wherein floral deisgners (primarily from District V garden clubs) are assigned a painting, photo, sculpture or other work of art to interpret in plant materials.
This year’s Art in Bloom crew were Jackie Smith, who had some prior experience and newbies Brenda Powell, Gayle Mathues and Sue Christensen. Our task was to come up with a design for a water color by titled The Lobster Shack, a painting done primarily in tans and browns with a hint of blue sky.
We met once to formulate a general plan. The picture suggested nature taking its course in the environment rather than anything contrived or ornate. At the second meeting, we brought loads of found materials from field and garden to select from thinking that dried items represented the season in the picture and the tones used. We also decided to suggest the largest structures by shape and hint at the one blue color using a single dry hydrangea, bark and grasses in a wonderful aged boat-shaped container. What was great was we spent NOTHING on our design except for the burlap over the pedestal.
We didn’t realize how great it was going to look until we actually staged it on the pedestal next to the real picture. Afterwords, after touring the museum to look at other AIB examples, we overheard a number of art patrons giving kudos to our effort, so we left feeling pretty up beat. Our group proceeded back to the Rhubarb House for lunch before heading home.
Here is our interpretation and some other AIB works who had set up while we were present:
(Click to enlarge)
Here are other examples:
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- Marilyn Potter using proteas to portray the barnacles in a black and white picture she was assigned.
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- This AIB commissioned the pottery piece that goes with this B&W picture.
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- A very impressive way to convey this rope fraying
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- This goes with a sculpture of a newsboy.
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