Month: March 2009

‘Broken’ tulips

I stopped by the greenhouses this afternoon for an AV emergency, and stopped to chat with one of our undergrads doing honors research on flower bulbs. He was excited to show me some ‘broken’ tulips — tulips infected by a virus which weakens the bulb but makes adds some pizazz to the blooms. The first two below I blogged about in their normal state here (if not identical varieties, they’re very close). So you can see the effect the virus has, making some fancy tulips even fancier..

broken bulb

broken bulb

This abnormal coloring is actually caused by mites, not virus.

broken bulb

broken bulb

Darwin art

From today’s NYTimes, Darwin’s Wake Splashed Artists, Too and the accompanying slideshow profiles the exhibit Endless Forms: Charles Darwin, Natural Science and the Visual Arts at the Yale Center for British Art.

… you may not learn anything new about his theories, but you will come to see differently, or at least begin to understand that our ways of seeing have evolved because of the power of his vision.

orchid
“Cattleya Orchid and Three Hummingbirds,” by Martin Johnson Heade, 1871.

Nectaroscordum sculpture

Who can figure where artists will find inspiration? One found found a very, very marginal shot of a canna flower I grabbed one day and turned it in to this glorious quilt.

I just got an email from Iris Sebba, a 3D art student in England, who says the image below inspired her to try to render it in metal and felt.

nectaroscordum opening

It’s not one of my best images. (There are better Nectaroscordum images in this post a couple of weeks later.) But I’m honored that Iris saw this image and then spent hours and hours and hours creating this sculpture.

nectaroscordum sculpture

nectaroscordum sculpture

nectaroscordum sculpture

nectaroscordum sculpture

I wish I could point you to Iris’s website, but all she has for now is a Facebook page. She writes:

[I have] no other images on the web except me in welding gear on facebook. Art is a slow process and really want to enjoy it rather than be pressurised by market forces (that is if anyone would be have the slightest interest in buying anyway!!) so hence no publicity. Having said that my family and friends may well find they have large metallic donations in the future. My husband is already set in fibreglass in the garden (not literally). I have done the degree for intellectual satisfaction as well as practical skills and may go on to do an MA.

Oh Iris. If only you were closer I would drive to pick up any donations you cared to make to my humble garden.

Here’s the fiberglass sculpture of Iris’s husband. Creepy or cool? I vote the latter.