American Grown
September 9 - November 18, 2023
Eleanor Harwood Gallery, San Francisco, CA

Eleanor Harwood Gallery is delighted to announce our second solo show with Tiffanie Turner opening in our newly expanded gallery.

Tiffanie Turner is an architect, author, and artist known for her small, meticulously detailed paper flowers and her giant paper botanical sculptures. At both scales, her sculptures of flowers deform, reform, pile up, contradict, and contort what we think of as a typical blossom. She pulls focus away from the specific blooms depicted, but uses their floral familiarity and allure to draw the viewer into her sculptures and the meanings behind them.

Turner’s work connects the associations and formal similarities of certain flowers with recognizable objects and themes to take on agism, sexism, conventional beauty standards, generational differences, marriage, and motherhood. Much of her work is faded, aged, or mutated, all metaphors of the impact of aging on our own bodies as well as a metaphor for some of the darker parts of American culture. Turner uses her sculptures to work through these issues, creating thousands and thousands of hand-cut petals out of Italian crepe paper, carefully sculpting and painting them into astonishing works.

One sculpture titled Originalism (December 15, 1791 - present), refers to the ratification of the Bill of Rights which put into law the right to bear arms. Her sculpture contains fifteen dead flowers (peonies, symbolizing shame in some cultures), one each for “15” in the ArmaLite semi-automatic rifle model AR-15. “Originalism” refers to the “principle or belief that a text should be interpreted in a way consistent with how it would have been understood or was intended to be understood at the time it was written.” Turner is addressing proponents of constitutional originalism and the continuation of gun violence, the faded bunch of flowers stands in as a memorial and a meditation on gun deaths in America.

Turner's 580085, is a sculpture constructed like a Rorschach test with four rose blooms. It quite literally asks us to look at the blooms and choose what we see. Do we see the deformity of a mutated double bloom? Or do we see the sculpture as beautiful? Do we see differences as alluring or do we only see a single perfect rose bloom as the “right” kind of bloom? Turner is always playing with our perceptions of beauty and “normalcy” guiding us to see imperfection as interesting, as a “fascination", as a botanist would term a deviation in a flower.

The full body of sculptures in American Grown is the result of two and a half years of work. Turner had three tenets as her guiding principles for American Grown. One, to become “anti-circle”, to physically change her work from wall-mounted, front-facing circles, to forms that were conical, multi-directional, angled, upward, mirrored, elongated, and beginning to defy gravity. Second, after almost a decade of thinking about and staring at nothing but flowers in her work, she sought to draw on resemblances she noticed between flowers and other earthly objects, both natural and manmade. She drew on those resemblances, associations, and formal similarities to imbue meaning into her sculptures, hoping that even if the viewer never connects the multi headed “Cockscomb Rose” to the very common fasciated strawberry of the same name, they will still wonder about the piece, and perhaps find something in it that she hasn't yet seen. The third and final tenet was to connect this work back to her childhood, comparing and contrasting the standards and safeguards around the raising of her two children with memories of her grandparents and parents, focusing on the past, present, and future, in the timeframe of 1950 to 2050.

Through her use of extraordinary detail and oversized beauty and decay, Turner presents American Grown, a meditation on her own life and American culture.

Artist Statement for American Grown

Turner conceived the theme of this show in the first year of the pandemic, when her shame about being an American was at an all time high. A cartoon of an American was swirling in her head: a styleless, gun-loving, misogynistic, God-fearing racist. She says she was focusing on a caricature of a person she didn’t actually know, and as she picked apart the different reasons to be ashamed about being an American, she realized that these traits are universal to many populations (except the gun violence, which seems exclusive to the culture of the United States), and that maybe she wasn’t qualified or even motivated to speak on Americans at large.

So American Grown turned personal. It evolved to depict, through memories and associations with certain floral forms, being a Gen-Xer with one foot in the pre-technology 1950’s of her grandparents and one in the 2050’s, when who knows what world our children’s children will inherit. The idea of being a latchkey kid who turned into a self professed “helicopter parent” and why that is. Turner took a semi-nostalgic trip down memory lane and contrasted it with where we are now to arrive at the concept of this exhibit. The flowers in this body of work tie back to themes of food, waste, marriage, sex, keeping up appearances, and a meditation on the lie that was American exceptionalism.

Eight of the ten works from American Grown are on exhibit from January 18 through March 18, 2024 at Saint Joseph’s Arts Foundation in San Francisco. I have never had the opportunity to exhibit my work in this way before, please stop in and see it before it comes down. SJAF is open to the public during the week, please check ahead of time to make sure they are open when you are planning your visit.

What Befell Us
Eleanor Harwood Gallery
Minnesota Street Project
1275 Minnesota Street
San Francisco, CA

April 19 - June 15, 2019

Full exhibition catalogue:
https://www.artsy.net/show/eleanor-harwood-gallery-what-befell-us

What Befell Us was my first solo show with Eleanor Harwood Gallery, consisting of a new body of seven large-scale botanical sculptures created over ten months. This new work, the heads of seven giant flowers, was a continued meditation on our tolerance of aging and imperfection, on what we consider ugly and what we consider beautiful, and on the high cost of these pursuits on our society and the natural environment.

I selected these floral specimens and the afflictions to depict with them from a vast variety of flowers that appeal to me due to form, texture and color. I then paired them with physical manifestations of imperfection, drawing from aging and deformities in plant life. The deteriorations evoke issues of climate change, from the effects of rising temperatures on pollen quality, to drought, to damage to blossoms due to earlier and later frosts, all caused by rapid environmental shifts, but not all immediately evident on the heads of flowers.

While I was researching these afflictions, I began to turn inward, drawing parallels and connections between our global climate crisis and my concerns about the value and perception of women’s faces and bodies as they age. The damaged goods of both aging women and flawed flowers ask the question “What Befell Us” at a personal and global scope. To quote Eleanor, “Turner’s investigations quite literally blow up the idea that damage is un-lovely. Her sculptures are undeniably exquisite, the products of intense labor, each head sculpted from hundreds (or thousands) of hand-shaped petals.”

I truly started to question, “Why do we wrap our most perishable fruits and vegetables in packaging that will pollute the planet for thousands of years?” and “Why did I become invisible when I turned 40, and at what lengths would I go to to turn back time?”. The parallels between the absurd pursuits of our culture that destroys our environment, and the absurd expectations I feel as a woman in this world became painfully obvious. I wondered, “Why am I starting to feel ashamed to be older?” and “Why do people find my distorted and decayed flowers lovely, but find my own dry and sun damaged skin (the result of a full childhood) unsightly? Could this ever change?”.

The pieces in this exhibit depict what ugly, old, or abnormal would look like in the beautiful head of a flower. Some of the pieces are obviously decaying. Some are distorted by age and desiccation. One piece, a rose, arguably the planet’s sexiest flower, is sagging toward the floor, prolapsed as if its most private parts cannot be contained anymore. “Platinum Blonde”, a giant dahlia, is very irregular around the outer petals, as it grows in nature. It is vulgar in size, imperfect in silhouette, yet beautiful. Says Eleanor, “The oddity of Turner’s approach is that the discoloration, the non-perfect becomes enchanting, arguing for an acceptance of expressions of age, wilts, and mutations in the flowers and our own bodies.”

The flowers in this show continue to explore these concepts. There are all the ideas of vanitas, of the temporary nature OF nature, the feeling of being youthful inside of an aging exterior. If I have learned one thing over the five years I have been making and exhibiting this work is that everyone has their own relationship to flowers, and that they open up myriad conversations, from memories of your grandmother’s garden to stories about the pesticide your next door neighbor is using on his dandelions. They remind you of Jay Defeo’s “The Rose” and they make you want to talk about the work of Georgia O’Keefe or Willem van Aelst. You will want to show me the silk flowers you make with vintage heat tools and open up your portfolio so I can see your photos of dead birds. For me, each of these flowers tells tales about changes to our climate on one level, and about my fading femininity on another, but they are still wide open and rife for interpretation, which I welcome with open arms.

I am so delighted to have been given a two page spread in NSFW book, released in 2021. This gorgeous publication is a collection of works curated for the past five years of NSFW and Femme exhibitions at Spoke Art and Juxtapoz Magazine Projects by Dasha Matsuura. Read more about NSFW book and order HERE.

In 2019 I began working with Shayne Fox, the set decorator for the FX channel program What We Do in the Shadows. I created several dozen dead paper flowers which we collaborated on integrating into a Victorian-era style bubble wall piece for the show’s second season. Currently we are working on new set pieces for season three. Images here are dead paper flowers from both of those projects, along with screen shots and process photos of the wall piece from season two.

In 2018 I participated in pre-production conversations with Jessica Hausner and her team for the 2019 film Little Joe. I created the first mock-ups of the plant featured in the film out of paper, and advised Jessica and her team on alternative methods of producing the flower and plants en masse.

I am looking forward to finding other opportunities to bring paper flowers into the world of cinematic arts. Please be in touch if you’d like to discuss any on-screen or on-stage projects, I’d love to talk with you.

Flower: Exploring the World in Bloom
Phaidon Press
September 2020

I was delighted to find myself included (on page 322, to be exact) in the beautiful “Flower” book from Phaidon Press. I can’t recommend this book enough to anyone who is attracted to floral representations and impressions in art. A wonderful tome.

From Phaidon Press:
A comprehensive and sumptuous survey that celebrates the beauty and appeal of flowers throughout art, history, and culture.

The latest installment in the bestselling Explorer Series takes readers on a journey across continents and cultures to discover the endless ways artists and image-makers have employed floral motifs throughout history. Showcasing the diversity of blooms from all over the world, Flower spans a wide range of styles and media — from art, botanical illustrations, and sculptures to floral arrangements, film stills, and textiles — and follows a visually stunning sequence with works, regardless of period, thoughtfully paired to allow interesting and revealing juxtapositions between them.

Orchids: Attraction and Deception
Barry Art Museum at Old Dominion University
Norfolk, VA

Pictured:
Orchid Vignette, 21st Century
2020
17" w. x 24 1/2” h. x 18" d.
German crepe paper, glue, wire, floral tape, stain, chalk, ribbon

From curator Charlotte Kasic:
For our second changing exhibition, the Barry Art Museum is thrilled to present Orchids: Attraction and Deception. The exhibition was created by the museum staff, along with incalculable input from a diverse team of Old Dominion University students, artists, and art historians, and in collaboration with Darrin Duling Associate Director at the Kaplan Orchid Conservatory and Lisa Wallace J. Robert Stiffler Distinguished Professor in Botany at Old Dominion University. Located in our rotating gallery, the exhibition will present works of art relating to the visual allure, ecological idiosyncrasy, and cultural impact of orchids. Timed to coincide with the bloom cycle of orchids at the Kaplan Conservatory, the exhibition schedule will include public programming in partnership with the Conservatory, the Norfolk Botanical Gardens, Oak Springs Foundation, and the Barry Art Museum.

When artists begin to investigate orchids as subject matter, the results are as varied and deep as the plants themselves. According to the nonprofit Rainforest Alliance, there are more than 25,000 species of flowering plants in the orchid family. The work included in this exhibition ranges widely, mirroring its inspiration – one of the largest and most diverse plant groups on the planet.

Is this a show about orchids? Yes, but orchids are just the tip of the melting iceberg, the canary in the shuttered coal mine, the indicator species for our greater world, the cipher for our evolving culture. From pure botanical fascination to climate change, from historical model-making to the history of collecting and colonization, the twelve contemporary artists represented approach the orchid from very different angles. This international group of artists has independently discovered the orchid as subject matter through rigorous research and poetic intuition. Working in printmaking, sculpture, photography, ceramics, glass, paper, and varied hybrid media, their work is thoughtful, insightful, challenging, and beautiful – and designed to provoke you to think deeper about that favorite design magazine staple, that easily overlooked supermarket flower, the orchid.

Participating artists:
JENNIFER ANGUS
ROXANA AZAR
BRENDAN BAYLOR
BRETT DAY WINDHAM
CALISTA LYON
DAVID WILLIS
TIFFANIE TURNER
NATALJA KENT
DEBORA MOORE
PAUL STANKARD
THE OAK SPRINGS FOUNDATION

Artist Statement:
This paper sculpture (Orchid Vignette, 21st Century) of orchids, leaves, and roots mimics the configuration of a 17th Century European woodcut of Mexican orchids, having been collected and recorded to track their medicinal properties. The woodcut depicts tropical orchids in a cut bouquet, while this assemblage contains moth (Phalaenopsis) orchids; two cut stems and one living center spike, with roots not grounded but still searching to be. The blooms on the center spike are dyed blue, representing the practice of augmenting the natural colors of flowers as found often in modern floristry, and providing a metaphor for the lengths we as humans will go to manipulate our own appearances for beauty’s sake. The two side stems are included to represent the side arms of the composition of the original “Orchid Vignette”, but having been cut, are beginning to wilt and drop their flowers. All three stems of blooms lack flower buds, suggesting that hope may not always spring eternal, and that some ideas should not continue to blossom.

As some Americans are reckoning at this time with the truths of the colonization of this country, the ways and lengths to which people have gone to appropriate orchids out of their native settings can offer many parallels, for those who chose to see them.

Hashimoto Contemporary, NYC
January 16 to February 6, 2021

'Lush' Group Exhibition

Hashimoto Contemporary is pleased to present Lush, a group show curated by Jennifer Rizzo. The exhibition brings together a group of over thirty artists from around the globe who have drawn inspiration from one of the most prominent muses of all times - the flowering species.

Throughout history, florals can ben found represented in art from all cultures and regions, as well as a source of inspiration within various artistic movements. With over 400,000 known plant species, artists have long looked to this endless array of specimens, utilizing them to convey a universal symbol of beauty as well as a spectrum of human emotion. By doing so, artists are able to imbue the delicately stemmed floral with great emotional heft.

Lush spotlights contemporary artists once again looking to the timeless floral muse, from Karen Lederer's soothing moments captured within quietly painted scenes, to Jeremiah Jenkins' lead flowers emerging from bullet casings to Anna Valdez's maximalist still lifes, the exhibition surveys a modern approach to a classic subject.

Participating Artists:
Destiny Belgrave | Thomas Campbell | Jeff Canham | Marleigh Culver | Andy DeCola | Genevieve Dionne | Gregory Euclide | Lizzie Gill | Rachel Gregor | Hell'O Collective | Hola Lou | Seonna Hong | Jeremiah Jenkins | Louise Jones | Natalia Juncadella | Gabe Langholtz | Karen Lederer | Madi | MC Marquis | Jet Martinez | Lara Meintjes | Josie Morway | Bianca Nemelc | Hallie Packard | Melanie Parke | Daisy Patton | Lucien Shapiro | Katherine Sherwood | Denise Stewart-Sanabria | Tiffanie Turner | Aldrin Valdez | Anna Valdez | Hillary Waters Fayle

After an incredible teaching trip with Lizzie Hulme and Textile Retreats Company in autumn of 2022 to Goodnestone Estate in Kent, England, we cannot wait to return for more. Two weeks in 2024 seem to have booked quicker than I could have imagined, but please register your interest for future paper flower retreats with us abroad here!

https://www.textileretreats.com/register-your-interest-paper-flowers-2025

Several times a year, I find a pocket of time to develop new small (life-sized) paper flower designs that were not featured in my book. I feel compelled to continue to explore paper flowers and foliage both for my own uses and for teaching workshops to keep the curriculum interesting to my students. The photos here are recent small flowers completed in 2019 and 2020.

While I shot the hundreds of tutorial photos in the book, the cover and all of the gorgeous, full page images were taken by the wonderful Aya Brackett. Here is just a small sampling of them.

You can order The Fine Art of Paper Flowers from the online retailers listed HERE, or anywhere fine books are sold. 

These photos from the book are copyright Aya Brackett 2017.

The Textile Retreat Company
Paper Flower Making with Tiffanie Turner

13-21 September 2022

We are delighted to announce that we will be hosting artist Tiffanie Turner’s first-ever paper flower making workshop in the UK from 13-21 September 2022 at Goodnestone Park in Kent. If you would like to join us for a week of creativity, interesting excursions, delicious food and luxurious accommodation in a historic stately home, we invite you to complete the form below to register your interest. We will send you full details of the 8-night retreat, including the projects Tiffanie will teach as well as a sample itinerary in the autumn of 2021 when you will have the chance to secure your place.

During the retreat at Goodnestone Tiffanie will show you how to make a variety of beautiful, lifelike botanicals using crepe papers. Employing a range of techniques including colouring and staining you’ll learn the skills you need to capture the natural beauty of flowers throughout their complete lifecycle from the unfurling of a new bud to a fading bloom.

As a self-taught paper flower artist, Tiffanie has learned all the tricks of the trade and she will share these with you in her classes. She will show you tips and shortcuts for stretching, folding and crumpling paper to form petals as well as techniques to give your flower centres depth of colour. You’ll also learn to master leaves, stems, stamens and other details for added realism. You’ll leave at the end of the retreat with a beautiful selection of completed flowers and the confidence and skills to recreate your own natural looking specimens at home.

Your accommodation for the week is at Goodnestone Park, the former home of Jane Austen’s brother Edward. This beautiful house dating from 1704 is surrounded by Goodnestone Park’s exceptionally beautiful 15-acre gardens which are known for their ancient woodland, parterre gardens and classical English planting. Described as one of the top three gardens in Kent, we will have exclusive access to the gardens during our stay including the recently restored Serpentine Walk, a favourite of Jane Austen. The retreat will include a number of excursions to a nearby moated castle and the world-renowned gardens at Sissinghurst Castle created in the 1930s by poet and author Vita Sackville-West.

During the summers of 2020 and 2021, I took my teaching efforts online through live demonstrations. Due to the workload for my 2023 solo exhibit and preparations to teach abroad in fall 2022, I won’t be able to offer online instruction this year, but I do intend to get back to it again one day. The best way to keep abreast of online demonstrations and instruction is through my Instagram posts where I announce events like these. (www.instagram.com/tiffanieturner)

Spoke Art, San Francisco, CA
NSFW/Femme
November 7 to 28, 2020

I created the sculpture Split Rose specifically for this show. Curated by my friend Dasha Matsuura, the group exhibition NSFW/Femme featured over 40 artists exploring themes of sex and sexuality from the femme perspective. The dynamic array of artists displayed a complex spectrum of experiences from introspective and intimate to playful and defiant.

More from Dasha:
Returning for its third iteration the exhibition explores and expands on what it means to be a sexual femme-presenting person today. Including a wide variety of media such as painting, drawing, embroidery, and ceramics, each artist presents facets of sexuality from the feminine viewpoint. The exhibition seeks to celebrate the ever shifting and multi-dimensional experience of each artist, from soft sensuality to frank brashness.

Participating artists:
Kelsey Beckett | Alexandra Bowman | Kaethe Butcher | Katie Commodore | Gina M. Contreras | Ale De la Torre | Genevieve Dionne | Sammy Dudley | Jen Dwyer | Lyndsie Fox | Maya Fuji | Alex Garant | Jessica Hess | Paula Jackson | Celia Jacobs | Chelsie Kirkey | Danielle Krysa | Joanne Leah | Hanna Lee Joshi | Rebecca Leveille | Kristen Liu-Wong (pictured above) | Celine Loup | Megan Ellen MacDonald | Sarah Maxwell | JP Neang | Jeany Ngo | Nicomi Nix Turner | Olivia Olivier | Carissa Potter | Pam Puck | Allison Reimold | Aiko Robinson | Shelby Rodeffer | Sexyfation | Katie So | Jessica So Ren Tang | Mel Stringer | Lindsay Stripling | Tatiana Suarez | Shannon Taylor | Mandy Tsung | Tiffanie Turner | Roos van der Vliet | Neryl Walker | Loveis Wise | Wishcandy | Lauren YS

Eight days in southern France with fifteen wonderful students, courtesy of Chateau Dumas and The Makerie. A dream come true. If you ever have a chance to take a workshop week at Chateau Dumas, please do it, it will change your life.

Preternatural was a group show curated by Kevin B. Chen at Jack Fischer Gallery in San Francisco in late 2016. I contributed two pieces to the exhibit. Kevin's curatorial statement follows.

"The preternatural (from the Latin præter and naturae) is that which appears outside or beyond the normal and natural. In theology, the term preternatural is often used to distinguish marvels or deceptive trickery, often attributed to witchcraft or demons, from the divine and sacred power of the genuinely supernatural. Upon the arrival of early modern science, the concept of the preternatural was used to refer to abnormalities and strange phenomena that seemed to transgress the working laws of nature, but which were not associated with magic or witchcraft. The terms preternatural and supernatural originally acquired distinct definitions within the ancient religious movement of Gnosticism, but have been since incorrectly equated as interchangeable phrases.

Pre-12th Century Gnostics distinguished between the natural, the preternatural, and the supernatural. Natural describes all that belongs to the material world and adheres to strict physical and scientific laws. Preternatural is the action that goes beyond the structure of the nature of the material universe. Supernatural is the action that goes beyond any created nature, belonging only to the divine.

The photographic and sculptural work in this exhibition falls within the preternatural, occupying space and time suspended between the mundane and the miraculous. Depicting and embodying flora, fauna, and landscape that appear to exist beyond the natural, the exhibition also comments on a number of pressing issues of our time, from global warming and rising sea levels, to genetic mutation and bioengineering, to survival and adaptation."

Exhibit photography courtesy of Scott Chernis.

A one day workshop at the phenomenal Jupiter Artland, outside of Edinburgh, Scotland, in September 2019. Dome installed by Solardome Industries, adjacent pool created by Joana Vasconcelos.

Nature Constructed was a public project and exhibition of my work in the Kimball Education Gallery at the de Young Museum for the month of May 2016. I was available to speak with gallery visitors each day about my work and theirs, and invited them to assist me in creating a giant, rotting ranunculus.

Exhibit photos by Randy Dodson, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

In September 2018 I was part of a panel of seven speakers from many fields of design invited by the Society for Experiential Graphic Design to speak at the Steelcase showroom in San Francisco about biophilia, our innate need to connect with the natural world. I chose to talk about the relationship between representational art and biophilia. A link to my portion of the evening can be found HERE.

Winston Wächter Fine Art, Seattle, WA
March 18 to June 30, 2021

Winston Wächter Fine Art is excited to announce our group exhibition, Cut Up, including works by Rogan Brown, Susan Dory, Andreas Kocks, Tiffanie Turner and Dustin Yellin, opening March 18th. Cut Up is a celebration of deconstruction and construction, and the beauty which can be created from creating voids and transforming parts into a reimagined whole.

Rogan Brown uses hand and laser cut paper layers to create organic sculptures, seemingly in the process of cellular growth. Hugely inspired by science, Brown is fascinated by the intricacy of microscopic structures and the beauty of nature at the quantum scale.

Susan Dory, best known for her colorful, geometric, layered paintings, has ventured into three-dimensional form. By using twisted and folded slices of painted canvases, Dory has created blossoming tree-like forms suspended in space. It is as if one of her paintings has been planted, her billowing sculptures the branches hanging from above.

German artist Andreas Kocks creates meticulously crafted installations of cut paper. Working with a limited color palette, Kocks’ forms balance elements from four artistic genres: the linearity of drawing, the painterly brushstroke, the site-specific element of architecture, and the physicality of sculpture. His installations carry a quality of movement and spontaneity, recalling splatters, marks and drips, but are carefully constructed from layers of cut watercolor paper.

Tiffanie Turner, formally trained as an architect, constructs large scale botanicals, in various forms of bloom and decay. Her intricately detailed and layered floral sculptures are larger than life, allowing the viewer to appreciate the rhythms and patterns found in nature. Through this intimate interaction she hopes to draw attention to the urgency of environmental concerns and the wonder which could be lost.

Dustin Yellin is best known for his sculptures in which he embeds hundreds of hand-cut images from drawings, magazines and art books, within complex forms and intricately figurative landscapes he refers to as “psychogeographies.” These figures are composed with pop-culture imagery and are webbed with visions of utopian communities where mankind and nature thrive. These works have been featured at such notable sites as New York’s Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, as well as the Brooklyn Museum, where Yellin’s work is part of the permanent collection.

THE BOTANICAL BIBLE by Sonya Patel Ellis is a delightful book which was released this fall (2018) on Abrams Books. This book is arranged to help you “design, grow, develop and celebrate your own inspired version of the botanical world”. I love this book so much, and am so delighted to be included in the same spread as my botanical heroes, glass artists Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka. (See pages 374-375.) I highly encourage you to keep a copy of this book in your library for constant reference. You can find it here or at your local bookstore, I’m sure.

This retreat with The Makerie in June 2019 was a wonderful chance to be back on my home turf with fifteen dear students on Olde Orchard Farm in Moultonborough, New Hampshire. We spent four days living and learning together, working hard, bonding, and creating some beautiful flowers. I can’t wait to do it again.

If you are interested in future workshops and retreats, be in touch with Ali at The Makerie or follow me here.

My second ever three-day paper flower retreat with wonderful Ali DeJohn of The Makerie was held at Lone Hawk Farm just outside of Boulder, Colorado in late October 2018. Our group of fourteen included several returning students and other talented paper flower makers, and we had what I thought to be a lovely time working away on double daffodils, faded coral charm peonies, English roses, pom pom poppies, foliage, and moth orchids. I loved this retreat so very much, and hope to return to Lone Hawk Farm in the future.

Sign up for The Makerie’s mailing list here to keep up to date on our 2019 retreat offerings on the east coast and Europe.

My very first three-day paper flower retreat with wonderful Ali DeJohn of The Makerie was held at the private studio of Fran Meneley (At Hand Studio) in October 2018 in Boulder, Colorado. What a wonderful time with eleven students, working through a difficult curriculum and learning a lot about each other in the process. This format of teaching is new to me, and I hope that my teaching style and expectations will evolve over each retreat to find the perfect balance of technical (and philosophical) learning combined with the freedom for students to use what they’ve learned for more freeform work. I had a great time and will never forget the people I met and got to know over these three days.

Sign up for The Makerie’s mailing list here to keep up to date on our 2019 retreat offerings on the east coast and Europe.

I offer instruction, demonstrations, workshops, and retreats in the San Francisco/Bay Area, the greater United States, and abroad. Currently the best way to stay up-to-date on my offerings is to watch for announcements on my Instagram, or check the schedules at Handcraft Studio School and Filoli where I teach regularly, as well as at The Makerie, who hosts many of my long form retreats in different locations.

Workshop photo on main website page taken by Heather Saunders.

In the summer of 2017, five of my large scale pieces were installed at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, as part of their "Flower Power" exhibit. This exhibit featured ancient works as well as pieces by contemporary artists. 

From the museum's website:

During the Summer of Love, flowers became powerful symbols of peace, a concept plucked from Buddhist art. More than merely decorative, floral imagery has helped convey ideas from the refined to the revolutionary for thousands of years.

In Asian art, flowers speak a language all their own. Where a lotus blooms, a rosebud is clasped, or cherry blossoms flutter to the ground, a story is told — if you know how to read it. 

This summer, uncover the hidden meanings of flowers in Asian art. Delve into the symbolism of six significant blooms: the lotus, plum blossom, cherry blossom, chrysanthemum, tulip, and rose. The enduring importance of these flowers is shared through gloriously gilded screens, sleek lacquers, rare porcelains, striking sculptures, pop art, and sensory-igniting, participatory contemporary installations that speak to today’s issues, from climate change to social activism.

FLORA
Cornell Art Museum at Old School Square
51 N. Swinton Ave.
Delray Beach, FL

March 29 - September 23, 2018

This group exhibition of contemporary artwork incorporating themes inspired by the goddess of springtime, fertility, and flowers was curated by Cornell Art Museum's Melanie Johanson. It included a wonderful range of artists and media. I exhibited one small scale work in the show titled Carnations (and other flowers). 

I am in discussions with Cornell Art Museum for a future collaboration, hopefully in 2020.
 

I just need to tell you, I really do love roses.

Nearly as exciting as my own book, I have been included, along with 45 other artists, in the wonderful Janine Vangool's fantastic encyclopedia of botanical art, design, and ephemera titled Botanica. This book is 448 pages of botanical goodness. My work and a wonderfully in depth interview are featured on pages 286-293 under the heading "Paper". A real honor to be included. This book is a beautiful tome and a must have for flower and plant enthusiasts. You can order here.

Here's more from Janine:

"Flowers and plants have long been a muse of artists and craftspeople. Personally, I can trace my career in graphic design and publishing to a childhood interest in botany and horticulture. I used to cut out photographs of flowers and vegetables from the seed catalogues that arrived in the mail and paste them in new layouts of my own making in tiny notebooks. And although I had my own little garden plot and earned a few ribbons at the local children’s gardening competition, I realized that my true love wasn’t for the hard, dirty work involved in growing vegetables (although it is satisfying to get earthy now and again)—it was an appreciation for the beauty of the plants themselves. Sketching flowers from life and collaging pictures of plants in a scrapbook was what I enjoyed most. In a simple and organic way, led by a genuine curiosity, I had discovered illustration and design. And for the many creative and enterprising people profiled within the pages of Botanica, an infatuation with florals informed their art, careers and businesses. I’ve also included some historical sources and botanical ephemera, illustrating that we have an evergreen fascination with all things floral. Arranged alphabetically by eclectic topics, Botanica collects a veritable mixed bouquet of art, illustration and stories of botanically inclined lifestyles. Perhaps they will help sow the seeds for your own creativity!"

Beyond the Bouquet
Sturt Haaga Gallery
Descanso Gardens
1418 Descanso Drive
La Cañada Flintridge, CA

January 22 - April 22, 2018

I am delighted to have contributed two works to Beyond the Bouquet. For Shame (2015), my large scale wilting peony, and a newer piece, The Ends, to Beyond the Bouquet at the Sturt Haaga Gallery at Descanso Gardens in the winter of 2018.

From curator Cristeen Martinez:

For millennia, people have brought plants and flowers indoors for their pleasure, tradition and even health. When flowers are removed from their natural surroundings and repurposed into bouquets and flower arrangements, gardening evolves beyond a practical skill into the realm of art-making. Beyond the Bouquet highlights this art-making tradition as it explores the newest trends. 

In this exhibition, both local and international artists experiment with concepts of nature, two and three-dimensional creations, an "alternative concept of beauty" and the blurred line between art and craft using a wide variety of media.

PHOTO CREDITS:
First image: Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder, Rebecca Louise Law and Tom Hartford

Third image: Portrait in Descanso's brochure taken by Aya Brackett

Fourth image: My piece, The Ends, courtesy of Cathy Callahan

A collaboration with photographer Sarah Deragon. Shot in Marx Meadow, located in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, in the spring of 2014. Conceived of as an introduction to "Heads", my first solo exhibit of large scale pieces at Rare Device in May 2014. I use this type of photo of myself frequently, usually shot by my son or daughter, to mark the expressiveness of each large scale flower before exhibiting it. They have become a sort of "meme" around the globe, with many other flower makers following suit. Find a collection of these types of photographs here.

A sampling of my small scale works. I share my process and progress of these pieces when I am working on them on my Instagram page.

For me, there are few more expressive or forgiving pursuits in the art of paper flower making than to create dead, dying, decaying, wilting, or deformed flowers. The movement in the collapsing head of a wilting specimen eclipses the sometimes stagnant rhythm of the face of a fresher flower. There is much left to discover here, with a world of subject matter and environmental issues to study, from simple rot to abnormal conditions like fasciation, phyllody and petalody, to the effects of our ever-changing environment on plant life.

These are some of my favorite specimens to create, in both small and large scales. I am looking to build a new body of work to exhibit in 2018 that will partially focus on dead paper flowers and the reasons why they are "dead".

Deep toward the end of shooting my book in winter of 2016, I was asked by Tolleson creative agency to be part of a booklet they were producing for Gmund Paper. At first, in my exhaustion, I thought I was being asked to work with their paper. But in fact, these photos were taken to then print onto Gmund's paper, showing how beautifully the paper responds to print images and text.

Shot in our flat on a stormy December morning by the incredible Eric Einwiller and his team, I am so happy to have my flowers captured in this manner. The brochure also features two other female artists located in the Bay Area, Heather Day and Aoi Yamaguchi, so I am in excellent company.

Link to the full campaign here.

UPDATE
November 3, 2017

I am home and recovered from the incredible experience of being on the road, teaching and talking about my work and my book. I have so much gratitude for everyone who showed up for me across the country. It furthered my belief that there is something more than just paper flowers going on here. Thank you to everyone who came out, and everyone who supported me along the way! xo

I am so excited to announce the 2017 leg of my book tour! I am being hosted by six incredible venues across the country, and it's going to be a lot of fun. This tour is going to be bonkers and a real adventure for me. I cannot wait to share The Fine Art of Paper Flowers with you all! Here are the details:

San Francisco Bay Area folks, please be sure to come out to Rare Device on Divisadero in S.F. for my big party blow out on September 8th, and my artist talk and demo at The Gardens at Heather Farm in Walnut Creek on September 14th.

I'll be in Los Angeles at wonderful French General on September 16th for two workshops and an early afternoon book signing. These workshops are already sold out, but I'll be back, and please come to the signing, I'd love to meet you! Then I head to Detroit for a day of workshops and a book signing with my friends of Flower House Detroit and Pot and Box on September 23rd, followed by a day of workshops and a signing with the lovely folks of Colossal in Chicago on September 26th. SO EXCITED! To cap it all off, please meet me in NYC for a book party September 29th and two workshops on September 30th at esteemed FlowerSchool NY. xoxoxo!

Photo of me sweating and signing books by the wonderful Heather Saunders.

In late 2014, UK-based Simone Webb and I collaborated on a series of four images, using photographs of my large scale work taken at different angles. 

Although working in different mediums, different scales and different countries, Simone and I have one element in common; our subject matter. Flora are at the center of both of our works, inevitably forging an exploration into the difference in scale and mediums. In these pieces, Simone strayed away from her practice of exploring the transitionary states that occur in nature to embrace the delicate and still beauty of my giant, intricate paper flowers. By scaling these large blooms back down to a size manageable on the printed page, Simone was able to capture them in a way their original three-dimensional, oversized state never would have allowed. We worked together to find the tension and balance in these compositions, which were executed by Simone in her UK studio.

See more of Simone's beautiful work HERE, and order prints of this series HERE.

Influenced by my East Coast upbringing and appreciation of botany, I invited both emerging and well-known artists from the U.S., Canada and abroad in to study ideas of botanical life forms in their wintery states of hardening, dormancy and decay. The show hung in January 2015 at Rare Device in San Francisco, and featured ten artists working in a variety of styles and mediums, including collage, pen and ink, textiles, linoleum block printing, ceramics, and more.

Participating artists:
Jo Boyer
Anna Branning
Alejandro Chavetta
Kathryn Clark
Danielle Krysa
Robert Larkin
Sonya Phillip
Noel Badges Pugh
Tiffanie Turner
Simone Webb

Promotional postcard image from Danielle Krysa's "Winter Was Hard on Rose".

Couch image on main website page taken by Stella Vazquez.