For the Love of Hydrangeas

Next to the boulder retaining wall coming out from my studio, I have planted a Hydrangea hedge.

It began with an invitation from Barbara G to dig up and take cuttings from her bushes last fall.

I planted the 2 root balls and stuck stick cuttings in the ground and left them for the winter.

Early in the spring they sprouted, grew enormous leaves and flowered profusly throughout the summer into early fall.

Barabara's plants are called 'lace' hydrangeas because the petals come out a few at a time rather than all at once.

They are blue and are likely to stay blue because our native soil is acidic. Pine needles and pine cones from nearby Douglas-fir trees continually fall on the soil keeping it acidic. 

Closer to the Green Shed I want the bushes to be pinker. I have been buying pink flowering plants and after enjoying them inside I have cut them back and planted them filling in the remaining space right up to the Shed. I pour my leftover tea into their soil and have added eggshells to help make the soil more alkaline (and the stalks fo these hybrids stronger) which supports pink flowers. However, most pink plants are now bred to stay pink so these ones are likely to stay the colour I bought.

I'll take a picture next spring to show off how the pink bushes pop against the dark green shed. As the bushes are further away they transistion into blues. This is the plan but I will have wait until next spring to see how things turn out. 

I love hydrangeas as do many of the women in my family. My sisters, mother, aunts and cousins grow magnificent hydrangeas in their gardens wherever they can. Karen, who lives in the mountains of Colorado, can't but I know she would if she could.

I made a series of hydrangea works from thrift store silk blouses.

Earlier posts about making these works here and here.

I gave one to each of my sisters and our mother.

We all remember how our grandmother (our mother's mother) grew magnificent hydrangea bushes that we spend many happy hours playing around.

I have a memory of watching her put some powder into the soil under the plants. She explained to me she was making their colours. It was my first introduction to aluminium ions and soil ph and I have been fascinated ever since.

I think of the hydrangea connecting our different generations. When I see them in my sisters' gardens I think of how our grandmother passed on her love of working with plants. I see I have passed this love on to my daughters.

Kaipara Coast Sculpture Gardens Exhibition 2016, New Zealand

While in New Zealand recently we visited the Kaipara Coast Sculpture Gardens to see the 2016 exhibition.

This was one of my favourites.

After walking along the hydrangea avenue one sees at the end Janette Cevin's 'Hydrangeas'.

Large-scale hydrangea paintings with their glossy highly decorative metal surfaces covered in acrylic and resin are larger than life and draw the viewer in.

Audrey Boyle's 'Kareao (Supplejack)' is made of steel to mimic nature.

Jane and Mario Downes 'Taraxacum Forest' is also made of steel and mimics nature in an overblown scale.

Marlyne Jackson's 'Beneath the Willow Tree'

Reminiscent of yarn bombing, Marlyne works to express the struggles of recent immigrants...

...making a new life for themselves.

Margaret Johnston's 'Sleep Out' is like a miniature Janet Morton installation...

...until one gets up close to it. 

Margaret remembers childhood summers spent sleeping in a pup tent in the back yard and playing beside the sea. She feels sad about how these activities are now polluted by the huge amount of dumped waste from the telecommunications industries. She knit the tent from this waste.

"What are we doing to our land?"

Nana's Garden Series

Today I worked on the 6th in my 'Nana's Garden' series where I am making hydrangeas in memory of the females in the maternal side of my family. My mother and sisters have their hydrangeas already. I will be exhibiting 3 from the series in Articulation's 'Urban Textures' exhibition in the Mennonite Heritage Centre Gallery in Winnipeg.
This particular hydrangea is made using fabric dyed by my good friend Anne Woods who is a stitcher and a dyer.
The magenta coloured piece of background fabric has the dappled look of summer and gives the petals a sun bleached look.

McMullen - Donna Clement's Work

'Motif de Fleur'

'Lilies'

The Urban Textures theme also included flowers because when we were in Winnipeg for our study week we spent time looking at gardens, particularly the impressive botanical gardens. That was when I saw magnificent hydrangeas, which brought back my childhood memories and I made the Nana's Garden series in response.

Donna Clement also responded to the flowers she saw in Winnipeg.

'Winnipeg - Gateway to the West'

Donna also examined the ethnic diversity in Winnipeg's early days.

McMullen Gallery Artists' Reception

Donna and I had a slow trip through snow this morning when we travelled from Calgary to Edmonton for a couple of functions to do with Articulation's exhibition in the McMullen Gallery.

This is the view of the gallery space when you walk through the front door.

Vickie Newington's work on panels.

2 of my 'Nana's Garden' works. My little camera couldn't handle the lighting conditions so these are not good images of the works.

The Fruits of Summer Show in Nectar Desserts

Donna, Nancy, husband Ron & I hung The Fruits of Summer show at Nectar Desserts this morning. Nancy painted 2 series of works featuring apples & cherries and some watercolour flowers with her calligraphy. Donna examined cross sections of fruits in fibre...

and worked flowers in her signature tissue paper drawing technique. I made little confections inspired by my memories of hydrangeas in my Nana's Garden series. I think they look like Nectar Desserts' executive chef, Rebekah Pearse's, fruit tart creations. If you click on the title of this post to visit her website, you will see what inspired me.

Rebekah wasn't coming in until this afternoon to get ready for a class she is teaching tonight so when we finished the hanging she hadn't seen it yet. We made groupings of works in the same shapes as the collections of furniture in front of them. We hope she likes what we did to her place.

Nana's Garden Series

Here is fabric ready to be sewn into another work for my Nana's Garden series. I am fascinated by the way hydrangeas are like litmus paper and indicate the ph of the soil. It is like flamingos eating shrimp.
My Nana used to put special stuff under her hydrangea bushes to make different coloured blossoms and I can remember being impressed with her knowledge of gardening.

Nana's Garden 1 - Finished

Here is Nana's Garden 1 finished & framed in a shadow box. I kept track of the hours it took to make - a total of 23 hours - so now I will be able to answer that question if anyone asks. It will be hung in Nectar Desserts for the month of August along with other flower & fruit themed work by Donna Clement & Nancy Dormer.

Progress On Nana's Garden 1

Here is Nana's Garden 1 after 14 hours. I am enjoying the stitching only I miss not being outside where I normally stitch when it is warm. Those summer breezes would play havoc with the tiny pieces of fabric I am working with.

Nana's Garden is Moving Along

The design is done, samples made, pattern transfered, ground fabric prepared, threads gathered up, fabric ironed & cut. Now for the hand stitching. A question people often ask me is how long a particular work took to make so I am keeping track of the time I am spending on this work; to date -7 hours.

Nana's Garden

I am developing a series of works using my memories of & associations with hydrangeas. I photographed many blossoms in the last days of their splendid show when I was in New Zealand this past May. The low angle of the late afternoon sun set off their fading glory.