Spooky Blooms at the Milwaukee Art Museum

My Mom and I have the annual tradition of attending the Milwaukee Art Museum's Art in Bloom show. Each year, local floral designers and garden groups randomly pick a piece of art, and then design a floral representation of that piece. They might work with flowers that are the same color as a painting, or build plant life into a shape that is similar to a sculpture. Or they might put together something that has a personal meaning to them. I say this because I occasionally don't understand the connection between the flowers and the art. This year's designs were mostly straightforward, but there were artist statements to further explain what the designers had in mind.

There were so many orange roses this year! I've had orange roses on my brain ever since working on the centerpiece for our witch party years back. It's not easy to find orange roses for sale around Halloween time, but there was no shortage of them at this show. Maybe this is because orange is the hot color this year. According to Pantone, anyway. The orange roses above were part of my favorite display. The rose covered, circular design went with a 16th century Russian iconostasis. In the center was a flickering candle.

There were many lighthearted works of art and floral designs at the show, but I'm going to focus primarily on the spooky and weird ones. The design below was created to represent the painting of St. Francis in the background. I've always loved this painting, and I really liked the floral design that went with it last year. It was a lot more straightforward. I suppose the light circle of plants in the middle of this one symbolizes the skull. The statement read that the red plants represented the stigmata, but that has nothing to do with this painting. So a little floral design license was taken here.

Here's a closer look at St. Francis. I always felt really drawn to this painting as a kid, and somewhere is a childhood charcoal drawing I did of him.

The next display was in the center of the Haitian art section. You can see a few Haitian paintings in the background. Basically this is a ram's skull, that appeared to be made of paper mache and painted.  There are flowers emerging from the skull's eyes and mouth and draping down the side of the stand. Since this display included an animal skull and lots of color, it fit perfectly with the art surrounding it.

This is a view from above the skull. The next photo is only included because it reminded me of The Invisible Man. Depending on where you stood, it looked like the hat was kind of hovering. This display had nothing to do with The Invisible Man, though. It was based on a black and white photo of a gypsy family. Each white flower was in place of a family member's face in the photo.

Some of the flowers used in the show were ones we'd all be familiar with, like roses and carnations. Others were so exotic, you'd think they came from a different planet! Here are a few of the more mysterious plants we saw. I'm not sure what some of these are. If any of you are into plants and are familiar with these, please let me know what their names are!

Isn't this curling frond insane? The little ones look like they could crawl right out of the big one! On closer inspection of this photo, the plant looks kind of hairy too. I won't lie, I was slightly creeped out while getting close to this one.

There's so much movement here! I'd like to know how the chair was even attached to the stand. This display was based off of the German Expressionist painting behind it. You'll just have to take my word that the painting is of a man sitting in a chair. This next picture is of lotus pods, with a white and green tulip to the side. There were these little spiky looking things sticking out of the pods. I assume those are seeds.

This next one looked really soft and fuzzy to the touch. I think that comes through in the photo.

Studying all these arrangements inspired me, both in planting new flowers and arranging new plants.   Our witch party centerpiece could certainly benefit from whatever this is. My Mom called it the hairbrush plant, because it appeared to be covered in bristles.

I love these purple, curling fronds. I think they would make a nice compliment to a bouquet of roses.

How different are these? I think they're white asparagus, but they look like fingers to me. They could make a nice addition to a Halloween floral display or food platter. Or even to the dirt outside. They're just creepy and cool.

I liked the texture of whatever this spiky little flower is. Again, it looks like a neat one to stick into a bouquet here and there. The multicolored ranunculus in the center of these spiky things, is my favorite new flower from the show! 

I got a chance to photograph a few somewhat spooky pieces of art along with the flowers. This decorative, Classical tomb cover is so realistic. I hope you guys are enlarging these photos, because there are a lot of details. This marble sculpture is titled The Last of the Spartans and dates from 1892.

These little critters are just random and fun. They make up the little cabinets of curiosities next to the museum's antique furniture collection. The little lizards are jumping through hoops, over hurdles, and under limbo poles inside of a round mirror-walled container. I wish the container would spin as these little things performed their tasks in front of us. As it is, they're frozen in place. I like to imagine these little guys as performers in a miniature dinosaur circus.

This last one is just weird. If I had to guess, I'd say we're looking at the spray painted remains of a crow. It's definitely some kind of bird. The framed woman behind the bones was a happy accident. She really did have a head, but with the way the shadow hit, it looks like the bird skull is taking the place of it. If the bird would only move slightly to the right...

I hope you guys enjoyed this photo tour of the Art in Bloom show! Visiting the flowers is always a fun way to transition into spring.