Floral Surprises and Snakes!

This past weekend my mom and I took our annual trip to the Art in Bloom event at The Milwaukee Art Museum. You'll probably remember how this goes from past years. Basically, people create floral arrangements to represent different pieces of art in the museum. I picked a few favorites to share here, as well as a few pieces of art that I've been meaning to blog about for some time.

So we're starting off here with what I think is a Halloweeny close up of an arrangement. I say it's Halloweeny because of all the orange, the twisted vines, and that Cock's Comb that looks a bit like a brain. I look at this and feel like it could all just slither out of the picture.

All the visitors got to vote on their favorite arrangement, and this next one got my vote. I got such a kick out of the face on that leaf. You don't have to guess how the arrangement relates to the art, do you? I always wondered about that face, like who the person was or what this all means. It feels very 80s to me with all that neon. Something funny I just realized is that the leaf face looks like it's eating some orchids.

These are some beautiful, waxy looking flowers that might be Ranunculus. I'm not sure about the fluffier one.

Now, this was an interesting display! This sculptural arrangement relates pretty clearly to the painting behind it.

I'm not sure what this creature is. A goat? It has large antlers, though. The painting hangs in at least what I call "The Haitian Room". The artist is Rigaud Benoit and the painting is titled Flower Carnival. That's a cool title, although it isn't giving me any clues about this creature.

I thought "Tim Burton" when I saw this next display. Just Tim Burton in general - his hair, the darkness, a few random wacky bits here and there. That painting behind it is the inspiration.

I saw several pieces of art that I thought you'd all appreciate, so I'm going to include those next.

Starting with this ceramic set. Did you know that there's black Wedgwood out there? I didn't. How cool is this? It looks like a tea set that's been painted with modern charcoal paint. Hmm... a little inspiration is forming.

And how cool is this little swamp creature? He was kind of an unexpected little gargoyle on the vessel. I assume he's just someone's idea of a fish, but I'm going to see him as a little swamp creature.

Just as I was approaching this, I overheard a woman say exactly what I was thinking "That looks like Cousin Itt".

Doesn't this metal Cousin Itt cast an interesting shadow?

I've been meaning to share this painting for a while, because I thought you'd all appreciate it. It's titled Outstanding European. Why do you think that is? The artist is Ross Bleckner and it was created in 1989. For some reason I thought it would be a lot older.

I think this is a fairly realistic looking snake. I took these pics through a glass case, but I think they came out fairly clear, considering that.

Here's another view of him kinda sneaking around the back, which is for some reason a little cute to me.

Sssss... This is another one that is newer than expected. This Snake Jug was created in 1991. For some reason, I thought it would be 100 years old. There are two artists listed, Michael and Melvin Crocker, so I guess this was a collaboration?

There's a friend for this snake in the museum! And this one is an older snake. It was created in 1908 by Oscar Spencer. It's titled Snake. So yeah, pretty straight forward.

Looks like its tongue is made of wire.

I took this photo in a room that is made to look like an antique collection of objects a woman has collected in her travels. To my mind, it looks Victorian. You know, the way Victorians collected. I could have taken a photo of many details in this room, but I really liked these lamps. They have a sort of Disney's Haunted Mansion vibe to them.

This one is a little hard to explain if you haven't seen the sculpture. There are a series of glass spheres in a row, and depending on where you stand they show up as bright colored. They're in a rainbow order. And the way the reflection works is, you see yourself upside down in these spheres as you approach them. So that's me upside down taking that pic and my mom coming up behind me.

I'll end with one last flower photo. This is one of my favorites and I might print it out. I like those beautiful orange Halloween roses with the dark edges.

I hope you guys enjoyed this year's trip to the "Art in Bloom" show at the museum! It was a much needed visit with some live plants. Would you believe we had several inches of snow fall only two days ago? It's all gone now, and hopefully we can soon look forward to seeing some flowers actually growing out of the ground!