Ferraria Crispa

 

 

The bizarre Ferraria crispa - the "Starfish Iris" - looks like it crawled out of the sea. This rare Iris relative from South Africa has beautifully intricate blooms with frilly edges. Ferraria crispa is a winter-growing bulb that flowers in spring, then goes dormant for the summer. Its attractive leaves emerge from small corms in autumn.  The leaves grow about a foot tall and have a thick, fleshy texture.  In late winter or early spring, the 1½ inch flowers appear. 

  

Fist looking at these flowers, they appear to be some kind of flower-coral hybrid. I have seen the ruffled edges described as being barnacle like, which I can really see. To me, they almost look "ornate" with their elaborate and highly decorative patterns and colours. 

Hubert Duprat

Trichoptera (caddis larva) building case (studio view), 1980-2000. Material: Gold, pearls, turquoise. Length: 2.5 cm. Photographer: Frédéric Delpech. Image courtesy of the artist and Art:Concept gallery, Paris and MONA Museum of Old and New Art.

Right now, in almost every river in the world, some 12,000 different species of caddisfly larvae wriggle and crawl through sediment, twigs, and rocks in an attempt to build temporary aquatic cocoons. To do this, the small, slow-moving creatures excrete silk from salivary glands near their mouths which they use like mortar to stick together almost every available material into a cozy tube. A few weeks later a fully developed caddisfly emerges and almost immediately flies away.

After first learning about caddisflies, self-taught (and self-professed amateur) artist Hubert Duprat had a thought. Had a caddisfly ever naturally encountered a fleck of gold in a river and used it to build a home? And then one step further: what if a caddisfly had only gold and other precious stones or jewels to work with?

Trichoptères, French for the scientific name of the caddisfly, is Duprat’s answer to that question. For years the artist has been collaborating with the tiny insects, providing them small aquariums of gold, turquoise and pearls that the the larvae readily use to construct their temporary homes. Regardless of how creepy crawly you might find the insects, it’s impossible to deny the strange beauty of the final product, tiny gold sculptures held together with silk. Encountering them void of any context, one would assume they were constructed by a jeweler.

Duprat currently has a solo exhibition at the Museum of Old and New Art in Tasmania which runs through July 28th, and it should be notced thath is work with caddisflies is only one small aspect of his art practice.

Trichoptera larva with case, 1980-2000. Material: gold and pearls. Dimension: 0.5 x 1.9 cm. Photographer: Frédéric Delpech. Image courtesy of the artist and Art:Concept gallery, Paris and MONA Museum of Old and New Art.

Trichoptera larva with case, 1980-2000. Material: gold and pearls. Dimension: 0.5 x 1.9 cm. Photographer: Frédéric Delpech. Image courtesy of the artist and Art:Concept gallery, Paris and MONA Museum of Old and New Art.

Trichoptera (caddis larva) case. Photographer: Fabrice Gousset.

Trichoptera (caddis larva) case on pedestal. Photographer: Fabrice Gousset.

Trichoptera (caddis larva) case. Photographer: Fabrice Gousset.

Trichoptera (caddis larva) case on pedestal. Photographer: Fabrice Gousset.

Trichoptera (caddis larva) case. Photographer: Fabrice Gousset.

Trichoptera (caddis larva) case on pedestal. Photographer: Fabrice Gousset.

From here.

Lindsay Feuer

Artist website

Suspended in the realm between reality and fantasy, my sculptures explore the organic process of growth, replication, and locomotion.
 
Deliberately ambiguous combinations of biological imagery reflect the perfect integration of form and function found in the natural world. Through an intuitive process, I allow these elements to respond to one another, creating “hybrid” forms with movement and fluidity.

Porcelain is an ideal medium for my work because its white luminescence showcases rich surfaces and curvilinear components.The strength and responsiveness of this clay also enables me to achieve whimsical and delicate sculptural elements. Hidden building techniques allow my sculptures to exist in a space of seamless illusion where they appear “born” rather than “made.” Inspired by the mysteries of nature, pieces deliver an animated and fantastical view of our biological surroundings. I invite my audience to draw upon their experience and imagination, and to discover a unique reality for each piece. 

Lindsay Feuer is a ceramic artist born and raised outside of Philadelphia. She creates unique and whimsical porcelain sculptures inspired by organic forms in nature. These works are a “hybrid” blend of fantasy and reality executed in highly detailed unglazed porcelain.

Himalayan Balsam

 Extract from this article.

An alien plant, so bothersome that Royal Marines have been called in to try to eradicate it, and so persistent that a top laboratory is working on a biological “secret weapon” to defeat it, has been helped to invade the British countryside by a fifth column of subversive flower lovers.

The Himalayan balsam grows up to 10ft (3m) tall and has colonised large areas beside rivers and woods throughout Britain, smothering any indigenous plants. The Environment Agency, Plantlife, Wildlife Trusts and the National Trust all say the species is a headache, and its total removal could cost as much as £300m.

But, with its pink orchid-like flowers, it is also attractive to many people. It’s so attractive, in fact, that a big factor in its invasive spread is people scattering its seed in the wild, according to research by Professor Ian Rotherham of Sheffield Hallam University and author of Invasive and Introduced Plants and Animals.

The upshot is that there is barely a part of lowland Britain free of this pretty menace. Fat stands of it clog small streams in places such as Somerset, and mass on the banks of rivers and woods from Cornwall to Scotland, with Norfolk, the Isle of Wight, New Forest, Hampshire, County Durham, Yorkshire, west Cumbria, Lancashire and North and South Wales especially troubled by it. The species is so prolific near Liverpool that it is known there as “Mersey weed”. Himalayan balsam grows in almost impenetrable thickets and will bully out any other species; its plentiful nectar means that bumble bees pollinate it rather than native species, and, being an annual, it dies down, leaving riverbanks bare in winter.

 It's interesting to consider that fact that this is an invasive species, yet has spread so far because people have found it to be so attractive! Using it's flowers as a means to spread further.

A discovery on a walk turned out to be very useful!

While out on a walk to enjoy the sun while it's here, and in addition to give myself time to gather more inspiration from nature and to think about the direction I wish to take future work, I came across these flowers.

Not having much knowledge of plant identification, or wildflowers in the area, I made the assumption that based on the appearance of the flowers that they could be a species of orchid. This was based on the overall aesthetic of the flowers, the colours, patterns found on them and their seeming similarities to many orchids I have previously seen.

I didn't take any clear photographs of the leaves, I was completely captured by how beautiful and unusual I found these flowers to be, having never seen anything like it in the area, or before on any of my walks. It was like making a completely new discovery, of course it turned out to be a new discovery only for me in knowledge gained from learning about this plant. The only thing I could gather was that lots of these plants were growing amongst a similar amount of Great Willowherb plants, most of which were taller than myself.

Wanting to identify these flowers, I spent many hours using Google, finding many websites about UK wildflowers and orchids found in the wild, reverse image searching using my photographs, but found nothing that helped me identify these flowers. I thought they could be Early Purple orchids, but finding these in July when they flower at the latest in June, and very few similarities made it doubtful.

I then happened across a blog post listing many different flowers in Endon, and saw these flowers! They are not what I was expecting at all, and are called Himalayan Balsam. They are a fast growing, invasive species that can spread their hundreds of seeds with exploding seed pods reaching up to 7 meters away, thus spreading quickly. They also smother other plants and vegetation as they grow and are dubbed a problem weed in many areas where they completely take over. They did however attract a lot of bees.

Common name Himalayan balsam, Indian balsam, jumping jack, policeman's helmet
Botanical name Impatiens glandulifera
Areas affected Gardens and allotments, often those adjacent to infested riverbanks and waste places
Main causes Fast-growing annual spreading by seed
Timing Seen spring to autumn; treat in early summer 

The Himalayan balsam (Impatiens glandulifera) is an erect, annual plant, with large, oblong leaves which have sharply serrated edges^. The reddish stems of the Himalayan balsam are translucent and succulent^. The leaves are also succulent and may be arranged opposite each other or in whorls of three.

Where it has been introduced, the Himalayan balsam often produces more nectar than many of the native species, making its flowers more attractive to pollinating insects than those of other plants living in close proximity. It also outcompetes native species for light and space, as its large size and high rate of reproduction facilitates rapid colonisation. The rapid growth of this species can be extremely problematic around water systems, where it can increase the rate of erosion and obstruct water flow, subsequently increasing the risk of flooding.

Wikipedia page on the Himalayan Balsam. 

 It's really interesting to discover all of this information about this plant. What I thought was a beautiful flowering plant turns out to be an extremely aggressive, invasive plant. What makes this find even more interesting to me is the ideas I have been researching and developing in previous work, such as parasitic fungi, and the ideas of subtle danger within my imagined organisms. I think this plant offers a lot of answers for me, in addition to just as many ways to further strengthen and develop my ideas further. 

I think I should really consider revisiting the site I found them, and document it fully through various methods.

Melissa Gamwell

 
 

Melissa Gamwell is an artist and writer based in New York. A recent graduate from the Royal College of Art, she currently works with a focus on abstraction of functional industrial objects, creating one-off pieces primarily in ceramic and metal.

A Day Job is Not an Art Crime

A Day Job is Not an Art Crime

colleendoran:

While I don’t want to be the voice of reason that buzzkills your art dreams, the fact is few people can make a full- time living in this business. Fewer still can sustain a long term career in the creative arts.

It’s hard to know when to let something go. Or when to keep pushing through.


Many creators lie to themselves and everyone else about their professional prospects. They don’t want to be seen as a loser. Many people will even advise you not too be too honest in public about how hard you are struggling. People seek out entertainment to escape their problems, not to be made to feel responsible for yours.
Instead of getting a day job between assignments, some artists sit for months or years without paying gigs. They incur huge debts they can never repay, or take lousy assignments they’re ashamed of, always hoping for the big payday that never comes.

Not being a full-time creator is not some kind of art crime. Sometimes it is better to get that day job and do art on the side. You may even appreciate art making more when you don’t have to rely on art for money.

This job has no benefits, no guarantees. Nothing. If you don’t make enough money to pay for every dime of your health care, your retirement, and all your business expenses, as well as your daily living needs, you are not making it as a professional creator. Getting by is not good enough.


Self awareness is key in this business, and some creators just don’t have it. They live on dreams.

But dreams don’t pay the bills.

It is possible to have that day job and have your dreams nights and weekends, you know. Let some other job finance those dreams with benefits.

Free yourself from other people’s expectations about what being a successful artist means. If necessary, get that other job, and look at it as your other job. You don’t have to frame your art making by other people’s standards.
Not being a full-time professional creator does not make you any less an artist.

A day job is not an art crime.

Photographer David Littschwager captured this amazing shot of a single drop of seawater magnified 25 times to reveal an entire ecosystem of crab larva, diatoms, bacteria, fish eggs, zooplankton, and even worms. 

Rogan Brown

My work is an exploration and re-presentation of natural organic forms both mineral and vegetal. I look for patterns and repeated motifs that run through natural phenomena at different scales, from the microscopic to the macroscopic, from individual cells to large scale geological formations.

I am inspired in part by the tradition of scientific drawing and model making, and particularly the work of artist-scientists such as Ernst Haeckel. But although my approach involves careful observation and detailed "scientific" preparatory drawings these are always superseded by the work of the imagination; everything has to be refracted through the prism of the imagination, estranged and in some way transformed.

I want to communicate my fascination with the immense complexity and intricacy of natural forms and this is why the process behind my work is so important. Each sculpture is hugely time consuming and labour-intensive and this work is an essential element not only in the construction but also in the meaning of each piece. The finished artefact is really only the ghostly fossilized vestige of this slow, long process of realisation. I have chosen paper as a medium because it captures perfectly that mixture of delicacy and durability that for me characterizes the natural world.

"The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see Nature all ridicule and deformity...and some scarce see Nature at all. But to the eyes of a man of Imagination, Nature is Imagination itself." William Blake

 

Mithu Sen: Border Unseen is the first solo U.S. museum exhibition featuring the work of Mithu Sen (b. 1971, West Bengal, India), a New Delhi-based artist who stands as a crucial feminist voice in contemporary Indian art. Sen rose to prominence in the last decade for creating sensual and grotesque representations of the human body, animals, and inanimate objects that seethe with undercurrents of irony and wit. Her drawings, sculptures, and installations push the limits of acceptable artistic language and subject matter, often upending conventional approaches to gender and sexuality by exploring the connotations of bodily materials such as hair, teeth and bones. In 2010 Sen was awarded the Škoda Prize for Contemporary Indian Art for her series of large-scale drawings Black Candy (iforgotmypenisathome), which explore homoerotic narratives of masculinity.

For her installation at the Broad MSU, Sen uses false teeth and dental polymer to create a monumental hanging sculpture that spans eighty feet, extending from the ceiling to the gallery floor. Drawing an organic and irregular line through the complex geometries of the museum’s Zaha Hadid–designed building, the work simultaneously evokes the human spine and an industrial beam. While referencing art historical dialogues surrounding materiality and Minimalism, the sculpture is primed to elicit strong reactions from viewers. With its epic scale and striking fleshy-pink hue, it is—like much of Sen’s work—at once deliberately provocative and disarmingly pretty.

 

Vacon Sartirani - Still Life (2009)

 

 

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Design for noise-isolating panel for restaurant "Del Vuoto", Milano, Italy. 2013