Art in bloom

You may recall, Blog, that a couple weeks back I issued a challenge to our readers to participate in our May Flowers Challenge.  To awaken their flower-cravings, today I'm sharing the wonderful experience I had yesterday with daughter Amanda and my bestest pal Martha.  We visited the Milwaukee Art Museum's annual "Art in Bloom" tribute to art and flowers.

Milwaukee area flower designers create works in live flowers and plants inspired by various works of art in the museum.  It's on beyond fun to see how they interpret the colors, shapes and themes of all kinds of paintings and sculptures using plant life.  I took photos of 28 of the 37 displays and you can see them here:

That's some serious awesomeness, Blog.  These people don't have green thumbs, they have varicolored thumbs.

I was so inspired, I decided to do my May Flowers Challenge project right away.  I hit the Joann store to get what I needed to do a silk arrangement based on this gorgeous entry from Art in Bloom:

I believe the painting behind it is Georgia O'Keefe's "It Was Red and Pink" and the arrangement was created by La Tulipe in Milwaukee.  I'm a sucker for succulents and just loved the jade plants and hens and chicks, etc.  I also liked how the green contrasted with the peach and coral in the painting, and the use of subtle touches of peach among the leaves.

So, based on this I set out to create a planter or dish garden using whatever I could find at Joann.  I found a beautiful green ceramic planter that was 50% off.  It took a long time to pick out the mix of succulents, tropical plants and ivies, and then a type of flower that would make sense in such a mix and provide a pop of color.  I also got floral styrofoam to fill the planter, "moss cloth" to cover it, and lovely fine gravel to pour around the desert plants.  It all set me back about $70, but it's quite a large and I daresay fancy arrangement, Blog.  Time-wise, shopping plus assembly was about two hours.

And here it is, my own art in bloom, which looks great with the installation of Katie's texture photos in our dining room.

Not bad, not bad at all, judging by the number of times I've gone into the dining room to stare at it!

So, let me reiterate about the May Flowers Challenge.  I'm making it even easier for people to participate.  Just send me a photo of any kind of craft you've ever done that incorporates a flower or plant theme, and a sentence or two about it.  Painting, drawing, scupture, photo, needlecraft, papercraft, jewelry, food, you name it, it works for me.  And any relationship to plant life works too:  if it looks like flora, uses floral images somewhere on it, etc.  I'm going to put up whatever I receive on May Day, so send your stuff anytime!  That email address is dianalaurence [at sign] wi.rr.com.  Blog commands you!  Or at least, urges you with much vehemence.

Oh, and flower arrangements, both silk and live, are most welcome too!