In Full Bloom
Ah, spring!
A time for love, a time for refreshment and a time for floral arrangements based on interpretations of several miscellaneous pieces of art.
Say again?
Unbeknownst to most students at USU, Friday at the Dale and Adele Young Teaching Greenhouse, located at the corner of 800 East and 1400 North, students from the Judging and Contemporary Design class at Utah State University presented their final projects for the semester, under the auspicious title of “Art in Bloom.”
For this project, each of the 15 students in the class was asked to bring a piece of art and interpret it in a floral arrangement and explain their interpretation.
“Interpret it doesn’t simply mean duplicate,” said Lamar Anderson, the teacher for the class. “I mean, if this reminds [a student of their] childhood on Grandma’s farm and [they] interpret that childhood on Grandma’s farm this way, it may not look like the picture at all. The picture gives [them] an idea and [they] interpret the idea.”
Having returned just two weeks ago from an intercollegiate judging and design competition where the team (made up of students from this class) took fifth in the nation, this project was a wonderful way to end a successful semester.
Anderson said that he first had the idea for the project five years ago when he took a three-day specialty art class at Texas A&M.
“They [did] floral arts at their museum, and I thought ‘Hey that would be a good project,’ so I incorporated it as our final project. It’s gone over well,” Anderson said.
Anderson said in previous years, the students “were limited to what art was on exhibit in the art museum on campus. This year for the first time we said [to the students], bring a picture of your own and interpret it.”
The art for the projects were as different as the students, their backgrounds and the arrangements they produced. Included in the choices were masterpieces by Van Gogh and Monet, art painted by students at USU, and even oriental wall hangings.
Russ Swalverg, an art major, recreated a painting of a face in his floral design and said that the piece “was selected for the color and vivid lines.”
Many of the students, such as horticulture major Pamela George, chose art pieces that touched upon their own life experiences such as “Daddy’s Little Girl” by Greg Olsen.
“I chose this piece of artwork because it reminded me of myself as a child wishing to get married,” George said. “I designed the arrangement to look like a classical wedding bouquet with a modern flare while using an old-fashioned vase to hold the design.”
Art major Nina Russell took a slightly different approach in her interpretation of Van Gogh’s “Café Paris at Night.”
“I chose to use only one red rose in the arrangement as a representation of Van Gogh himself,” she said. “I’ve tried to reflect Van Gogh’s expressive interpretation of everyday scenes by using common flowers inside of a Hogarth curve.”
Eliciting such imaginative interpretations, the class is a story in itself.
“This has been my favorite class I’ve ever taken at Utah State,” said horticulture major Jane Bitner. “I get to work with flowers every day, create incredibly crazy things that don’t necessarily mean anything to anyone else, but they mean something to me.”
Anderson said, “It’s probably the most fun class on campus.”
He also noted one girl who asked if she could come back next semester for fun, because this was her “therapy class.”
Other students such as Tresha Thunell also had high praise for Anderson and the skills he’s helped the students develop.
“He taught us a lot about colors and how they go together, different shapes in design, different types of designs, how to make them show movement or show types of feeling through colors and textures,” Thunell said.
Art major Sara McKee said, “I’m so used to this Martha Stewart feel where it’s ‘the more the merrier, but I learned that less is more and that sometimes it has a bigger impact if you don’t stuff [the design] as full.”
Bitner said, “I think everybody should take this class. I think the university should sponsor it because it’s a great class for friendship, for using your imagination, [and developing] a very sellable skill.”
Anderson would love nothing more than to see the class continue receiving such support.
“If they keep paying me to come back, [and] pay me for doing my hobby, why, I’ll be here,” he said.
For those interested, Basic Floral Arranging 3010 will be offered this fall and is open to all students. The Judging and Contemporary Design class, Plant Science 3020, will be offered again next spring.
-mattgo@cc.usu.edu
Exhibit visitors take in student work at a show displaying the final projects from a USU floral arranging class. Each arrangment was inspired by another piece of artwork. (Photo by Scott Davis)
A detail of one of the floral arrangements is seen at the Friday evening show that exhibited final projects. (Photo by Scott Davis)