Category Archives: artists
our far-flung fling
We move too quickly to keep up. There is much to say about the team at Organic Mechanics, photos to share of a vast and wine-fueled dinner at the Conservatory of Flowers, stories to tell of the city itself as … Continue reading
Posted in artists, design, garden ornament, garden travel, garden visit, MB Maher, photography
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Filming James Griffith’s Tar Paintings
I just voted for tar, and I know you want to as well, which is why I’m making it easy. Click, click here and it’s done. Your reward? Should James win the vote, our reward is getting the full story … Continue reading
Posted in artists, science
Tagged James Griffth, KCET public television, La Brea Tar Pits, Natural Selection paintings
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Rick Frausto’s Kitchen Window With Beakers
When photographer MB Maher was in town a couple days ago, I told him that I keep bumping into one of his images in my travels through blogs and Pinterest boards. It’s one he took many years ago of Los … Continue reading
Lili Singer’s Thursday Talk with Isabelle Greene
“Sixteen years ago I was writing only prose and what I consider now traditional garden writing for magazines. And then one day I was in my office looking at a landscape architecture magazine, turned the page, and there was an … Continue reading
cochineal
“Under the seams runs the pain.” ― Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red I’ve been going over my notes the past couple months from Dr. Alejandro de Ávila’s remarkable lecture “Blood on a Fountain,” which he gave this past January at … Continue reading
Posted in agaves, woody lilies, artists, creatures, design, garden travel, garden visit, science, succulents
Tagged Amy Stewart, cochineal, Dactylopius coccus, Dr. Alejandro de Avila, dyes, Helen Quinn, Jardín Etnobotánico de Oaxaca, Monte Alban, Montezuma cypress, opuntia, Opuntia ficus-indica, Stenocereus marginatus, Taxodium mucronatum, The Drunken Botanist, The Ethnobotanical Garden of Oaxaca, UCBG "Natural Discourse", University of California Botanical Garden at Berkeley
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Jardin Majorelle, Morocco
What I know about Yves Saint Laurent, the fashion designer, as opposed to his enormous, well-known cultural celebrity, is limited to sewing up some of his “rich peasant” and stunning Russian collection designs off of Vogue patterns in high school. … Continue reading
Posted in agaves, woody lilies, artists, design, garden travel, garden visit, MB Maher, Plant Portraits, succulents
Tagged bleu Majorelle, Fondation Pierre Bergé - Yves Saint Laurent, general director Jardin Majorelle, Hugh Johnson, Hugh Johnson's The Principles of Gardening, Jacques Majorelle, Jardin Majorelle, Madison Cox, Marrakesh, Morocco, Robert Pogue Harrison, Suzy Menkes, The Principles of Gardening
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hidden mesoamerican palaces
not in Central America but here, in Los Angeles. Frank Lloyd Wright’s Sowden House, of textile-block construction, built for friend and photographer John Sowden in 1926. Renovations by a new owner in 2001 included restoring the stonework and the addition … Continue reading
Dear Delphine
Dear Delphine, Like the movie Being John Malkovich, the doorway to your fertile imagination is waiting for me whenever I need an infusion of inspiration, and you never disappoint. I still find it astonishing that I can see the world … Continue reading
another look at James Griffith’s Natural Selection series
I wrote about artist James Griffith’s Natural Selection series here, as he was preparing for that show, and have heard now that he’s off in a new direction for a show to be held sometime in 2014. Something to do … Continue reading
Posted in artists, creatures, science
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Natural Discourse; Form & Function 1/11/13
Some important dates. Natural Discourse, the multimedia exhibition installed in the University of California Botanical Garden at Berkeley, is closing January 20, 2013, so it’s now last-chance-Texaco time to get over there and have a look at its many wonders, … Continue reading