This summer I decided to dip my feet into new territory and enrolled in UC Berkeley’s [IN]LAND summer institute, a program offering an intensive introduction to landscape architecture. The first assignment was an installation at Blake Garden in Kensington. I partnered up with another student named Karla Perezyera and together we walked the twelve acres to find this patch of Mayten trees speaking to us. With his image, photographer Geoffrey has captured the sense of movement that we wanted to convey.

See more of his work with trees here:
Arboretum

I just made it through my second Bouquets to Art at the De Young. This year I chose the painting “Easter Morning (Portrait at a New York Window)” by Frederick Childe Hassam. I loved the colors in this painting! Choosing what I would design turned out to be a difficult task. Examine any painting for long enough, and you can find infinite observations.

Easter Morning depicts a woman alone in a room gazing out her window at the city below. The space of the canvas is divided in three parts with one section devoted to the chair, another to the woman, and a third to the bay window. This painting marks a period of Hassam’s career in which he painted solitary women in interior settings. As the woman draws back the curtain, you can feel the quiet isolation of the moment. But with Hassam’s impressionistic play on light, the gradations of pink are illuminated by the outside and the painting is given a hopeful quality.

In order for my design to relate to the main qualities of the painting, I decided it would have to incorporate the chair. And so the adventure began!

If you are told to think about flowers, you will most likely conjure up an image of a garden, or a standard vase arrangement. This exhibit succeeds in reminding us that flowers offer possibilities that are beyond our wildest imagination. It’s an incredible opportunity to view the work of more than one hundred talented florists exhibited side by side. For brides to be, this is far and away the best venue to see which florists have styles that align with yours.

ROSEHIP has participated in Bouquets to Art for two consecutive years. See an interview with Lindsay:

Photo Gia Canali

Photo Gia Canali

Photo by Ed Pingol

If you’ve ever enjoyed a delicious meal at Brown Sugar Kitchen in Oakland, you have owner Tanya Holland to thank! You may also recognize her from Food Network, or appearances she’s made on the Today Show. I met Tanya when she was manager of Le Theatre restaurant in Berkeley, and shortly thereafter she published New Soul Cooking. I designed this bouquet to brighten up her book signing table. For more information on Tanya: http://www.tanyaholland.com/