In response to last year’s rave reviews, the Garden Club of Harvard and the Bromfield School art department will again collaborate to bring color and fragrance to audiences yearning for spring. Bloom N Art, with all new art and floral material, will be open to the public for three days: Saturday, March 17, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Sunday, March 18, 1 to 4 p.m.; and Monday, March 19, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. in Volunteers Hall at the library. The vice president of the Garden Club, Margaret Murphy, again received a grant from the Harvard Cultural Council, one even more generous than last year’s, which will help defray expenses. The exhibit will feature 23 pieces of student art, each interpreted in a floral arrangement by volunteers from the Garden Club. The arrangers are fine-tuning their ideas and hoping they can find the flowers they need, and the teachers have expressed how excited they and the students are to view the final exhibit and see how the artwork has been interpreted.
Planning for the exhibit starts in the fall, and about a month before the event, things really kick into gear. From their end, Bromfield art teachers Elizabeth Hoorneman, Cynthia Fontaine, and Cindy Harris select artwork from their students in grades 7 to 12. The works chosen are from a variety of classes using different mediums: Hoorneman’s Art Foundations, Clay, Advanced Art, and Independent Study; Fontaine’s Digital Photography, Digital Graphic Design, and Grade 8 Art; and Harris’ Middle School Art.
Pictures of the artwork are then sent to Bloom N Art Co-Chairwoman Deb Dowson, who forwards them to all the Garden Club members who signed up to do an arrangement, asking them to pick their five favorites. “It’s always fun to see what appeals to different people and how they base their design choices,” said Dowson.
Then comes the tricky part: Dowson tries to please everyone by giving each arranger one of her top choices. Mostly this works out so that people get their first or second pick. “It is also really helpful when I get people who are flexible and happy with whatever they are assigned,” said Dowson. Once everyone is matched up, the teachers choose a day after school for the arrangers to go to Bromfield to view the artwork each has chosen and to get an enlarged print of it. Last week a group of arrangers had arrived early and had to wait until the kids cleared out. A few minutes into the waiting, Mary Beth Marcello exclaimed, “It’s like meeting a blind date.” Although each arranger had already seen a small picture of her “date,” the real thing often differs in color and texture, and it may inspire a whole different idea from what the arranger had been thinking.
Matching art and flowers
Can purple ferns be found for these clay spirals? (Courtesy photos)
In talking to some of the arrangers last week at a brainstorming and practice session at Friendly Crossways, the Press learned that a frustrating scenario is for an arranger to pick the art because she has an immediate idea of what flowers would be perfect—and then not being able to find the flowers she wanted. Barbara Heim said that for “Clay Vase with Spirals” by 12th-grader Lily Shaw, she had immediately thought of a purple fern in its coiled stage, which she had seen often at the flower market. However, on a recent trip to Boston, she learned that the vendor who had carried the ferns was no longer part of the market. A different vendor suggested she go online and have the ferns shipped from Hawaii. Heim is still hopeful she can find them somewhere closer—a lot closer.
Kathy Jackson chose “Watercolor Landscape,” a 12-by-6-inch piece by junior Hannah Taylor done for Independent Study. “I just loved the colors,” said Jackson. She said she would buy the right colored flowers and “not worry about it.” But clearly that was a bit of bravado because her next words were that she has often seen a particular flower at Idylwilde in Acton, and the next week it won’t be in the mix. She is hoping the timing works for her.
It was because of this difficulty in knowing and actually finding the right floral material last year that led Margaret Murphy to pick an art piece for which she knew she could find flowers. “Poison Dart Frog,” done for Middle School Art by Imogen Slavin, grade 7, appealed to Murphy because of the bright primary color in each quadrant of the canvas. She said she’s excited to do her arrangement. “It’s fun,” she said, and added that her granddaughters love helping her. (Maybe Murphy won’t tell them what kind of frogs these are.)
Containers matter
Self portrait and op art.
Who are these graphic dudes?
Elvis at the World Cup?
Some of the arrangers start with the container. Co-Chairwoman Shirley Boudreau had a shallow bowl in an unusual shade of green that perfectly matches one of the colors in a swirled fabric that forms the background of her chosen painting, an assignment for Middle School Art: Self Portrait/Op Art Background. In the foreground is a boy with light brown hair and glasses. “I think he looks like a nice kid,” said Boudreau. The artist is eighth-grader Julian Iverson.
Heim had brought a red, shallow container that she thinks might work for a 15-inch-square digital graphic design for which she and Kathy Hewett have teamed up. The picture, by senior Stephen Scarano, shows a group of male figures in what look like ski masks. The figure in the foreground has ears—or horns—that provoke lots of questions in the mind of the viewer. Heim said she is fascinated by “how good the movement is despite being done with discrete triangles.” Hewett said she was drawn to the picture because it made her think of the song “All the Young Dudes.”
Elvis and the number 18
Hewett is also doing an arrangement by herself. “Autoportrait (Inspired by Robert Indiana)” is by senior Carolina Mello. Hewett liked the bright colors of a triangle with the number 18 on it, superimposed on a ball, with numbers and arrows flanking the central image. She chose the painting because she thought it would be fun, although, she admits, “I had no idea what I would do with it.” She said research helped; she now sees a soccer ball, with the numbers and arrows showing the score in the 1960 World Cup match in which the United States lost to Brazil. Mysteries remain, however—the word “Elvis” and the number 18 among them.
Garden Club member Theresa Ledoux is creating a brochure for the exhibit, which will list the title of each art piece and the name and grade of the artist. The name of the arranger will accompany each floral interpretation. There will be plenty of volunteers to help people navigate the exhibit, and once again viewers will be asked, “Please don’t touch the artwork; let the artwork touch you.”
