Don’t forget that you can order Art Hearts from the online shop to give to your sweeties this holiday season! There are eight styles available on metal stems or as ornaments with twine loops. And a portion of all Art Heart sales go towards philanthropic art projects!
More images of my permanent Umbel Installation in Mariestad Sweden for the Off Season Gardening program are now up in the installation pages of my website!
If you can’t read Swedish like me, Google translate tells me that the article title says, “Abstract Flower Arrangements Will Spread Joy”. The local newspaper, the Mariestads Tidningen, sent reporters out to meet me a few times during the installation process. The photo on the right is in the workshop space I was loaned to assemble the sculptures and I was captured mid sentence explaining the piece to the reporter. The photo on the right is onsite in Humle Plats (Hops Garden) immediately after the installation was finished. I’m pretty excited to of been given the opportunity to install these Umbel Sculptures permanently and I really hope that they do bring joy to the community of Mariestad.
It’s hard to believe in just a few short months; an application, turned into an acception, a sketch turned into a sculpture and now, I have a permanent public art installation in Mariestad Sweden. I’m so grateful for everyone who had a hand in making this happen. And I really look forward to seeing how this installation will change over the seasons. I’ve been trying to imagine the snow cover first, and then the green leaves coming back to the trees in the background of the sculptures and eventually to 12′ tall hops plants that will be planted and flank the Umbel flowers on either side- lots to look forward too! More pics coming to the installation page soon!
After a very long journey, I arrived in the lovely town of Mariestad of the shorefront of Lake Vänern. The hours of sunlight are very limited here this time of year and the drizzly weather makes for fabulously moody skies. I spent the first few days getting over the worst of the jet lag by getting a lay of the land, walking through the nature reserves and watching the locals prepare for the upcoming holiday season. The location for my artwork will be in the Universitetsparken where the University of Gothenburg holds their horticulture program. It seems like the perfect place for my Umbels to reside.
My time in Sweden has not just been spent staring off at scenic vistas, in my few days here so far I’ve unpacked my crate (everything survived- yay!), I have most of the flowers attached to the metal structures, the location of the Umbels has been selected, so the holes for the bases were dug and lighting placement was also chosen. The next few days involve sanding down the connection point of epoxy between the ceramic and the metal so that it’s a smooth transition between the structure and the flowers and then painting the transition to match. There’s also a few interviews with the local news who are interested in my crazy sputnik looking flowers and then it’s looking like Friday morning will be the official final placement. I really can’t say enough about the kommun (municipality) of Mariestad that has answered every question, solved every hiccup in the process at every turn and been so compliant to the artists choice in how steps are taken. I think I’ve been very spoiled here with this amazing public art committee. Final installation pics are coming soon!
Here’s the monthly wrap up of everything going on at the studio…
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I was so happy to hear that my crate of artwork arrived safely in Mariestad Sweden!
One hurdle accomplished. Yay!
I leave for Sweden today and will be spending the following 10 days assembling and installing two large Umbel Flowers for the Off Season Art Gardening: Humle Park project. I’m so looking forward to meeting the team I’ve been planning with in person and exploring Sweden for the first time.
Hoping that it all comes together as planned and that the artwork looks great installed! Fingers crossed!
more to come soon….
