Creative Synergy

Fitchburg, Massachusetts is one of those small New England cities that boomed with the first three-quarters of the 20^th Century but has struggled in recent years.  Its largest employer decamped in 1998 for cheaper labor and taxes, taking 4,000 industrial jobs with it.  Too far (48 miles) from Boston to be a commuter suburb, Fitchburg – population 42,000 – has had to reinvent itself.

Fitchburg retains architectural charm

Reinvention is aided mightily when a town preserves the best of its architecture from its heyday.  It is beneficial when those industrial barons from a century ago were collectors of art and bequeathed their collections to local museums.  And it is a decided plus to have a garden club with a half-century-long illustrious history and a mission that is heavy on “giving back” to the community.

I saw these disparate elements come together on Friday evening, when I accompanied my wife, Betty, to the reception for the 18th “Art in Bloom” at the Fitchburg Art Museum.  There, 36 works of art – paintings, sculptures, tapestries, photographs – had been interpreted by members (and invited non-members) of the Laurelwood Garden Club.

It was a festive evening: 200 invited guests imbibed above-average wine and seriously good hors d’oeuvres while listening to a jazz band.  The mayor was there; Fitchburg’s state representative was in attendance as were a goodly number of the Museum’s Board of Trustees.  In short, this was a serious event.  Betty was there

A small part of the Art in Bloom reception

because she is President of the state Garden Club Federation (of which Laurelwood is a member) and, as an accredited floral design judge, she had been asked to select one entry for a “best in show” blue ribbon. 

The premise of an “Art in Bloom” is fairly well understood (I explored it last month in “Reaching Out”).  The “art” half of the equation can be anything from grade school drawings to the multimedia creation of an honors student or a Picasso blue nude.  The “bloom” side of the ledger is a garden club member being assigned (or choosing) a piece of art and creating a floral design inspired by it.  The two stand together for everyone to see for form their own judgement about whether the interpreter “got it”.

One of the Triiibe pieces.  The curly
willow branches in the floral
interpretation seem to flow into the
photo triptych

Two things set Fitchburg’s “Art in Bloom” apart from its peers.  The first was the art.  The museum is light on Picassos, blue or otherwise.  But it has an energetic and imaginative loan program.  One of exhibits, called “Triiibe: Same Difference” spans multiple galleries and employs life-size photos, videos, and props to make its frequently satirical points about equality, gender, and politics.  You might think that “garden club ladies” would steer well away from such topical art.  You would be wrong.  Museum Director Nick Capasso told me the 14 artworks chosen for interpretation in the Triiibe exhibit were the most coveted slots. 

Another of the Triiibe pieces.  The
floral design at left interprets the
visible artwork.  An interpretation
of a different work is at right.

Similarly, a photography gallery filled with both vintage and modern silver gelatin prints drew a rush for entries.  Black-and-white photos do not immediately lend themselves to floral interpretation.  Do you follow a monochrome palette?  Do you fall back on a pavé design that stays true to the image in front of you?  The short answer is that none of the designers played it safe.

The second thing that makes Fitchburg’s program noteworthy is synergy.  Last year’s “Art in Bloom” drew 1300 visitors to the museum, making it the highest attendance weekend of the year.  Director Capasso said he agreed only to “take a test drive” about the event when he arrived at the museum four years ago.  Today, he is fully on board.  “There is so much creative energy,” was his summing-up comment.

I’m in awe of what the Laurelwood Garden Club did, as well as the resources – people and organizational – devoted to the project by the Fitchburg Art Museum.  It is very rare for two institutions collaborating on a once-a-year project to have such a profound and tangibly beneficial effect on one another.  Kudos to both.

Reaching Out

March is a great month for garden club “outreach” – a time when clubs can tangibly point to their deep ties within the communities from which they draw their membership.  Outreach can take many forms, but the common factor is that a lot of people are drawn into an event where the club’s fingerprints are everywhere.  I’ve been to three such events so far this month.

On March 19, Betty and I journeyed up to Topsfield to see the third annual installment of the “Grow Spring! Expo”.  Here’s the top-level impression:  Holy Cow!

I was at the first Expo two years ago.  It was a fine undertaking organized by the Topsfield Garden Club: a dozen or so exhibits, mostly non-profits, built around environmental awareness and enhanced gardening knowledge.  It drew about 150 people.  The second installment coincided with the Winter That Would Not End and the 100 miles round trip was beyond our endurance on a snowy weekend.  We reluctantly took a pass.

Inside the Emerson Center.  Photo
credit: Eric Roth.  Double-click for
a full-screen slideshow.

I knew something was up this year when a professionally-produced flyer arrived announcing the event.  It promised “a celebration of local agriculture, horticulture, and environmental preservation.”  It would feature a farmers’ marketplace, wine and beer tastings, antique farm equipment, crafts, and horticultural experts.  Moreover, what had been an undertaking by the Topsfield Garden Club was now also sponsored by the Topsfield Historical Society and the Essex County Agricultural Society.  Previously confined to the historic Emerson Center on Topsfield’s town green, the event would now spill over to the nearby Gould Barn*. 

Want to grow a one-ton pumpkin?
These guys could tell you how.
(Photo credit: Eric Roth)

We arrived at 1 p.m. to find every conceivable parking space spoken for, a long array of antique tractors on display, and crowds moving between exhibits in the Emerson Center and food, craft beer, and local wine tasting in the barn.  The Grow Spring! Expo had gone big time.

Topsfield Garden Club President Martha Morrison told me that by bringing in the two co-sponsors, the Expo gained an added dimension.  The vintage tractor lineup came via a contact through the Historical Society, a group that grows giant pumpkins (and attracted a gaggle of children) is a member of the Essex Agricultural Society.  Each group ran an expansive campaign to turn out the public using social media, posters, and newspaper publicity.

Bees are essential to pollination.  The
Essex County Beekeepers Assn. was
represented at the Expo..  (Photo
credit: Eric Roth)

But while the event was colorful and fun, it was the unbridled expertise to be found in the individual exhibits that set the Expo apart.  For example, an unassuming man named Jim MacDougall seemed to inhabit both a Conservation Commission booth and an exhibit for an organic farm.  He held court on the subject of invasive plants; a subject that normally flies under the radar of people not already attuned to their threat. His explanations were crisp and compelling.  I later learned he is a highly respected biodiversity consultant, lending his expertise for the morning to a worthy cause.

Another person drawing a crowd was Edith Ventimiglia.  She spoke on environmental education to adults, then offered on-the-spot mini-lessons to children.  It should come as no surprise that she is an area science teacher, and that she also helped create the curriculum for the Massachusetts Audubon Society’s Ipswich River Nature Pre-School in Wenham.  That’s just a sampling of the level of professionalism that was on display.

Outside, there were vintage tractors

The Expo drew more than 675 adults during its five-hour run, plus what seemed like every child within a twenty-mile radius of Topsfield.  The organizers have already been given suggestions for next year’s event, including a tractor-drawn hay wagon to ferry visitors between buildings.

Trying to find the one person – or even one organization - to whom to give principal credit for the event turned into a finger-pointing exercise.  Martha Morrison pointed to Topsfield Garden Club Vice President Kindra Clineff (who at least acknowledged that she created the poster).  I now have an inbox full of names of people and ancillary organizations (including Green Topsfield), each of which seem to have been instrumental to the event’s success.

* * * * * *

Needham Art in Bloom
paired floral designers
with gifted high school
art students

 “Art in Bloom” programs have become staples among Boston area clubs over the past two decades.  The “ur” event of this type is held at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts where, four decades ago, a group of garden club members were invited to pair their floral designing talents with selected pieces from the MFA’s permanent collection.  The event (opening this year on April 30) had become a three-day extravaganza of high-profile speakers and master-class workshops (you can learn more about it here). 

Being asked to participate is an honor.  Those chosen have no voice in the artwork they will interpret.  A wonderful older lady of my acquaintance – with a strong Catholic school upbringing – was presented with a famed Picasso “Two Blue Nudes”.  In her words, she “made it work”.

Floral designers
captured the color and
rhythm of artwork

The success of MFA’s Art in Bloom has spawned dozens of similarly named events across the region. A few, such as Fitchburg, tie their programs to local art museums.  Most look to the art programs in area schools.  In early March, I attended Needham’s “Art in Bloom 2016” at the Needham Public Library.

The Needham event, now in its eighth year, is sponsored by Beth Shalom Garden Club but draws designers from multiple clubs.  The art – 59 pieces in all - is provided by Needham High School and showcases the breadth of art education in the town.  Needham High offers AP-level classes in drawing and painting, photography, ceramics, computer graphics and animation, and crafts. It requires at least an hour to see and appreciate the range of projects created by the students, and to take in the floral designs that accompany them. 

In Canton, floral
designers interpreted
art from all grades.

A week later, we were at Canton’s Pequitside Farm to see “Artists in Bloom”.  There, the Canton Garden Club and Canton Public Schools have collaborated on a very different project. Instead of drawing solely from high school students, there were more than 250 pieces of artwork from more than 150 students representing every grade level.  Thirty pieces were selected at random to be interpreted by Canton Garden Club members.

I had the opportunity to spend time with Joyce Stenmon, Visual Arts Program Coordinator for Canton Public Schools.  She told me “Artists in Bloom” is an opportunity to visually demonstrate that art is universal.  The art is placed cheek by jowl in four rooms, with the interpreted pieces spaced every few feet.  The effect is joyous and raucous, made all the more so by the fact that the building was full of children and adults there to see their creations on display.  The event drew more than 300 adults (who paid a nominal admission fee) and more children than anyone could count.  I came away with a keener sense of the value of art’s role in 21^st Century education.

* * * * * *

Suffice it to say that garden clubs are the sum of their parts (meaning their members), but those “parts” are often extraordinary.  People join garden clubs because of an interest in gardening or floral design or horticulture, but they bring with them a wealth of skills, plus the skills of spouses or partners.  The skills may be creative (photography, design), business (finance, management), educational (teaching, consulting), or technical (science, engineering).  Pulling off a feat like the two Art in Bloom programs or Grow Spring! Expo requires multiple talents and extraordinary coordination. 

Each club deserves all the accolades they have undoubtedly received.  Great work!

*  As a purely personal side note, walking into the Gould Barn was a step back into my own history.  It was the place where, in September 2013, I gave my first presentation of 'Gardening Is Murder'.  What an incredible journey!

The First Weekend of Spring Is Not the Same As the First Spring Weekend

This afternoon, the snow on our lawn
was still quite deep.

A wise person once said you should never mistake the first day of Spring for the first Spring day.  Here in New England, those words are chiseled in granite, or perhaps sculpted in snow.  This is the first weekend of Spring, but it should be more accurately categorized as the 14th weekend of winter.  Yes, we are getting more than twelve hours a day of sunlight, but that is the only grudging concession the season has yielded.

The mounds of snow at the edge of
the driveway are usually gone by the
second week of April.  This year, all
bets are off.

Snow still covers much of the lawn and the piles out by the street are still more than six feet high and have acquired a certain ugliness.  Each year, Betty and I make a bet in when the last of the mounds along the driveway will disappear.  We usually make that bet in mid-March and figure that the second week of April will mark the snow's final disappearance.  This year, we have not even ventured a date because the snow/ice mound is still so deep and thick.

The first crocuses were spotted
on Saturday.

But there are a few signs of Spring.  Yesterday, we cut back the grasses that provided 'structure' to the beds along the street before the nastiest storms pummeled them into nothingness.  In the process, we found two clutches of crocus.  It is a dozen flowers, pale against the brown leaves where the sun has melted the snow, but it is a start.  In a few weeks, there will be thousands of crocus.  The giant Petasites throw up an alien-looking flower before spawning leaves that are more than a foot across.  Betty found the yellow bump of one of them underneath a crust of snow.

Though still mostly covered in ice,
a rim of water can now be seen
around Danielson Pond.

Behind our house, Danielson Pond is starting to melt.  It is still only a rim of liquid water around the edge of the pond and the ice in the center is probably a foot thick, but our body of water has seen its last hockey game of the season.
This first weekend of Spring also brings "Art'n'Bloom" to our town.  Thirty-eight years ago, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston invited in a dozen floral designers to 'interpret' works in the museum's collection.  That event is held at the end of April and "Art in Bloom" has grown to become one of MFA's most popular draws. 

This is 'my' contribution
to Art'n'Bloom.

Dozens of towns around Boston now host their own variations on MFA's creation.  Medfield has one of the oldest, and it is called "Art'n'Bloom". Held at the Medfield Library this weekend, the art was supplied by students at Medfield High School, the floral designs by members of the Medfield Garden Club.  The interpretation may be as simple as a vase of flowers or as complex as the designer has the time and skill to make it.  Approximately 30 arrangements were paired with some stunningly good works of art in multiple media.

Betty interpreted a small ceramic
student piece using Monstera. It
looked fabulous. 

This year there are two entries from the Family Sanders.  One had Betty's name on it; the other has mine.  The one which has my name attached to it was created by me only in the sense that I was physically present and made one useful suggestion (the use of moss).  Other than that, the intelligence and skill belongs entirely to my spouse.