Tai Montanarella, Marian S. Heiskell, Associate Director, School and Out-of-School Programs
One of the rewards for leading plant science workshops at the GreenSchool in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory for school groups is often the lovely drawings and letters of thanks we receive from students afterward. However, when we received the garden-inspired artwork of Mrs. Foley’s fourth graders from P.S. 107 in Flushing after they visited the Holiday Train Show in December, I knew from their drawings and writing that these were not just obligatory thank you notes, but recollections of heartfelt experiences.
This Sunday, June 19, we’re opening our gates to a cadre of some of the finest out-of-doors painters the region has to offer during our Plein-Air Invitational—over 20 plein-air artists who will set up their canvases across grounds and look to our 250 acres for inspiration.
Among them is James Gurney, one of our area’s leading artists and a nationally recognized painter whose work you might’ve caught during the opening weekend of our Impressionism: American Gardens on Canvas exhibition. If you weren’t so lucky to see him in May, now is your chance to see the master in action. You can find a full list of participating artists here, and we invite everyone to visit their personal websites after the Invitational and it was amazing to see his following, some might even say he needs to buy views on Instagram to grow it even more—they’ll be selling the works they create!
Robert Llewellyn’s photography is high-tech, but nature-focused. He shows us what we can’t see with the naked eye, but is all around us.
Normally, when a photographer takes a photo with a macro lens, only a small portion of the image is in focus.
Llewellyn’s process solves that problem using a motorized, computer-controlled camera to change focus points and reveal every part of the plant he’s photographing, down to tiny hairs, bits of pollen, and the texture of fine, opaque petals.
Fifty exposures later, the images are stitched together in computer software.
Chelsea’s powerhouse Gagosian Gallery is not the most likely place you’d find pressed herbarium specimens.
But that’s exactly what you’ll see there as part of the gallery’s current show by multidisciplinary artist Taryn Simon.
In “Paperwork and the Will of Capital,” Simon recreates and photographs the elaborate centerpieces that sat between powerful men as they signed agreements designed to change the world. Preparing the exhibition, Simon worked with Daniel Atha, NYBG botanist and Conservation Program Manager, and Sheranza Alli, NYBG Senior Museum Preparator and Herbarium Aid, who teach a Plant Collection and Preservation Workshop at the Garden.
Waves of students pool together inside the queues of the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory as they eagerly wait to explore its many biomes and exhibitions. A cluster at the front of the line indicates the children are balancing precariously on tip-toes to glance at the imposing structure placed near the entrance of the building. While some eyes light with recognition of the word “Macy’s” labeled on the brown, box-like creation, others are entranced by the toy train which circles it in an infinite loop. This grand replica of Manhattan’s famous department store, festively decorated with sprouting horns of white branches and red yuletide ornaments, stands as the captivating introduction to The New York Botanical Garden’s annual Holiday Train Show.
As GreenSchool’s intern for the 2015–2016 academic year, I am able to interact with these students and discuss what they observed as they participate in the GreenSchool’s plant science workshop, “Building with Botany.” Just like the Holiday Train Show which was restructured and expanded this year, so was its complementary workshop. “Building with Botany” is now a fully involved STEAM program; like its acronym, it seamlessly integrates science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics.
Last October, a tempting proposal popped up in the NYBG Botanical Art Program Facebook group.
Trumpet Vine Seed Pod by Monica Ray
“Would anyone be interested in a ‘Sketchbook Exchange’? And, if so, how would we go about it?,” NYBG Botanical Art and Illustration Certificate alumna Monica Ray wrote.
Almost immediately, responses poured in, like “Sounds like fun! I’m in!” and “I’ll do it, too!”
By the next day, the plan was fully formed. Each of the nine participants would buy her own sketchbook and complete a nature-related drawing or painting in it before mailing it on to the next person in the exchange. Everyone would have one month to complete a new piece before mailing the sketchbooks on to the next artist. When you get your sketchbook back, the exchange is complete.
They called it “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Sketchbook.”
Premiering tonight, Wednesday, June 10, an incredible live presentation by internationally renowned artist Jenny Holzer will take place at the Garden—and we hope you’ll join us for the opportunity to experience it! For four consecutive nights during our Frida al Fresco evenings, Jenny Holzer in conjunction with The Poetry Society of America and The New York Botanical Garden will present a program of scrolling light projections on the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory.
For more than 30 years Jenny Holzer has presented her astringent ideas, arguments, and sorrows in public places and international exhibitions. Her medium is always writing, and the public dimension is integral to the delivery of the work. Reflecting Kahlo’s intense relationship with her culture and the natural world, Holzer’s hour-long presentation will include poems by Mexico’s Nobel Prize winner Octavio Paz, verses from contemporary Mexican female poets, and even a selection of powerful passages from Frida Kahlo’s own diary.
Juana and Yolanda, our visiting Mexican artisans, delighted the public with their artistic weaving and embroidery techniques.
During the opening weeks of FRIDA KAHLO: Art, Garden, Life, the Botanical Garden hosted two special guests from Mexico. Juana and Yolanda, sisters from the town of Zinacatán in the state of Chiapas, were showing off the ancient technique of weaving with the back strap loom and decorating cloth with beautiful embroidery. Wearing traditional garments that they made and adorned themselves, they caught the attention of many visitors.
An evocation of Kahlo’s studio in the Haupt Conservatory.
Many of us got our first glimpse of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo’s life with the award-winning 2002 biopic starring Salma Hayek and directed by Julie Taymor, of Lion King fame. But the Frida now on view at The New York Botanical Garden’s exhibition, FRIDA KAHLO: Art, Garden, Life, is a totally different person from the film version.
The new exhibition is the first to “re-imagine” Kahlo’s garden and to explore her appreciation of nature—including the many plants, insects, and fascinating animal imagery in her paintings.
Frida Kahlo adored the garden at her home, the Casa Azul (Blue House), in Coyoacán, Mexico. Her painting studio directly overlooked the garden with its cobalt blue walls and fabulous collection of native Mexican plants. The garden was both an inspiration and a private haven during Kahlo’s personal battles with chronic illnesses and disabilities.
Ed. Note: In art, as in life, the orchid has enjoyed many decades of popularity throughout the world. But some might be surprised to find that these “exotic” flowers were en vogue with the horticultural set well before the 20th century made their cultivation rote. Even in the 1800s—and as far back as Charles Darwin’s investigation of his eponymous star orchid—there was a fervent interest in these elegant blooms.
Andrew Tschinkel, the LuEsther T. Mertz Library’s Digital Imaging Technician, gives us a glimpse into the orchid’s illustrated past.
Mertz Digital, the LuEsther T. Mertz Library’s online collection, has just added several vintage nursery catalogs from the firm of Lager & Hurrell. The firm of Lager & Hurrell was established in 1896 in Summit, New Jersey and was, for decades, the largest commercial producer and distributor of orchid plants in the Americas.
John E. Lager (1861–1937), who founded Lager & Hurrell in 1896, was a legendary orchid hunter whose exploits took him to the most remote jungles of the world in a life long quest for extraordinary and beautiful orchid specimens. He was the subject of a 1933 TIME magazine profile for discovering a specimen that the writer described as “the world’s rarest orchid,” the pure white Cattleya Gigas Alba, sold by Lager & Hurrell to the Baron Firmen Lambeau of Belgium for the then astronomical price of $10,000! [Potentially $180,000 by modern estimates.]
