News
- ASLA Releases Guide To Health Benefits of Nature:: “The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) has created a terrific and handy collection of studies that all demonstrate the positive impacts the natural environment has us.”
- Zombies vs. animals? The living dead wouldn’t stand a chance:: “Next time you’re lying in bed, unable to fall asleep thanks to the vague anxiety of half-rotten corpses munching on you in the dark, remember this: if there was ever a zombie uprising, wildlife would kick its ass.”
- Lovefest: Landscape Architects and Restoration Ecologists:: “Landscape architecture and ecological restoration are really different disciplines, but increasingly these fields are working together in fascinating ways.”
- Everyone Has Contact with Nature but that Nature Is Not the Same:: “what can be learned from a smaller city in the midwest United States — an average city?”
- How to track animals in the city:: “The city teems…
This was originally published on Native Plants & Wildlife Gardens.
For the last post in my series of plants in the arts, we’re going to look at the importance of plants in children’s art. The rest of the series included various arts starting with Plants in Poetry, then looking at visual arts with Plants in Paintings:: Vincent van Gogh and Plants in Design.
I have a wonderful little friend in Finland who is 8 years old and quite a magnificent artist. Her name is Mia and she loves nature. Neither of her parents are nature geeks, but they do greatly encourage her interests. When I visited them a few years ago we bonded because I am a nature geek. Mia loves to spend time outside observing wildlife and rescuing worms from sidewalks after the rain. She also loves to draw and make art and spends incredible amounts of time and energy…
This was originally published on Native Plants & Wildlife Gardens.
This is the third post in a short series about the importance of plants in the arts. The first post was Plants in Poetry and looked at the various ways plants were used as inspiration, symbolism, morals and as an appreciation of nature. The second was Plants in Paintings:: Vincent van Gogh which discussed the importance of plants and nature to van Gogh’s work as well as his life. In addition to poetry and paintings, plants have played a significant role in design. Following are examples of the important role plants have played in two iconic companies.
Tiffany & Co. Glass
Louis Comfort Tiffany was heavily inspired by nature and that was reflected in his work, not only in subject matter, but in the use of colors. According to the Morse Museum of American Art, his “aesthetic was…
This was originally published on Native Plants & Wildlife Gardens.
“If one really loves nature, one can find beauty everywhere.”
-Vincent van Gogh
This is the second post in a short series about the importance of plants in the arts. The first post was Plants in Poetry and looked at the various ways plants were used as inspiration, symbolism, morals and as an appreciation of nature. In addition to poetry, plants have been represented a great deal in paintings. We can go into nearly any art museum and find a still life of a bouquet, everyone from Henri Matisse to Pierre Auguste Renoir to Paul Gauguin all spent time painting bouquet’s of flowers settled among indoor props. The landscape painting genre however kept plants in their native surroundings and paid special attention to the types of plants that were there. Of course many artists made…
This was originally published on Native Plants & Wildlife Gardens.
Plants are beneficial for a lot of reasons such as providing habitat and food for wildlife. However, lest we forget, plants are also important to humans, not just for food and shelter, but for the arts. In the first of a short series of posts I’m going to look at some of the arts in which plants have been an inspiration. The first is poetry, the idea came to me while reading Weeds: In Defense of Nature’s Most Unloved Plants by Richard Mabey, a fascinating book about the most resilient plants (and the subject of another future post). In it he discusses some of these weeds and how many of them have been depicted in poetry and other writings including those of the most famous of all, The Bard of Avon.
Plants as Symbolism
Hamlet, Act IV, Scene V by…
News
- Bloomin’ lovely gardens brighten up London’s East End:: A competition for residents of London’s East End, the winners were chosen for showing ” what they can do with plants, wildlife and the environment.”
- Can biodiversity be accommodated in today’s urban environment?:: Posing the question, this piece from The Ecologist looks at recent efforts including the International Year of Biodiversity 2010 and the more recent Animal Estates project in London by Fritz Haeg.
- Yesterday’s pool is today’s pond:: An interesting idea of turning unused swimming pools into ponds for wildlife, making them require less maintenance and more environmentally friendly.
- Chicago Plans A New Park That Dwarves All Other Urban Parks:: Chicago is planning a 140,000 acre network of parks, open space and recreational facilities.
- 2011 in review: West Seattle Wildlife:: An interesting post from the West Seattle Blog featuring the variety of wildlife reported in West Seattle last year…