THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, June 22, 1995 TAG: 9506210191
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN PAGE: 10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY PHYLLIS SPEIDELL, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 153 lines
BANANAS, FERNS, marsh grasses and tree branches are not the stuff of a typical floral arrangement, but they were exactly what amateur designer Barbara Monahan needed to create the perfect backdrop for ``Pan,'' a small bronze sculpture of a chimpanzee's head.
Monahan is among more than 150 volunteers whose creative efforts make ``The Elegance of Form and Flowers,'' a unique art exhibit in southeastern Virginia.
In its eighth year, the show exhibits 165 pieces of art. Each work of art is matched with a natural arrangement specially designed to complement that particular work.
The show is sponsored by Wakefield Foundation Inc.
Monahan's assignment to the chimp sculpture was her most unusual in five years of working with the show. ``It was also the most fun I have ever had doing this,'' she said. ``He was so beautiful I wish I could have bought him.'' ``Pan'' was the work of California sculptor Trent Moyer.
``Elegance in Form and Flowers,'' an open, nonjuried show, draws artists from as far away as New England and California, as well as dozens of professional, amateur, and student artists from all over Virginia. Each artist is limited to a single submission. In contrast the floral designers are all amateurs and all local volunteers.
In 1988, the first exhibit attracted 40 to 50 artists. ``This year, we are bursting at the seams with 165 works of art,'' W.H. Goodwyn III, originator and chairman of the show, said.
The concept of combining flowers and works of art is not a new one, ``but this show takes it further, with more artists, than any of the others,'' he added.
``This is a celebration of artistic endeavor and nature is a pretty good artist in her own right,'' Goodwyn explained. ``So why not combine natural beauty with manmade beauty?''
When H. Binford Harrell, a commercial artist who is also vice president of the Wakefield Foundation board of trustees, first saw the unique exhibit he was most impressed by the creativity of the floral designers and how they worked with the art.
``The floral designs are sometimes far more creative than some of the artwork,'' Goodwyn agreed.
The only restriction on the floral designs is that any plant materials used must be natural, live, or dried, but no silk or other artificial flowers or greenery.
``We ask that the volunteers have fun with their work and use their imagination to interpret the artwork in theme, color, or medium,'' Catherine Carrell said. ``We want them to express what they see in their piece of art.''
Occasionally designers will use more props than flowers and sometimes ``the designs can get a little risque,'' Carrell said with a laugh.
A history teacher and real estate broker in Surry, Carrell has been the show's floral coordinator every year. Her job was to make sure that each piece of art had a fresh arrangement in place by 6:30 p.m. last Saturday, the night of the opening reception.
With so many fresh materials, the designs tend to wilt more quickly in the unairconditioned gallery. After a few days the arrangements are removed but the artwork remains on display.
Some of the more creative arrangements in the past have included a collection of shells, sea grasses, sand and a live goldfish swimming in his bowl in front of a nautical painting.
One year a fruit still life inspired a designer to heap a bucket with shiny red Delicious apples topped by a single magnolia blossom. ``I don't know if anyone took an apple but they sure looked good,'' Harrell said.
One of Goodwyn's favorite designs was created to complement a mountain landscape. ``The arrangement of mosses and ferns in a hollow log gave you the feeling that you had just come down off the mountain and were in the woods at its base,'' he said.
This year's show further challenged the designers' ingenuity because it opened a week later than usual and summer heat had taken a toll on some garden flowers.
Jordan Renney, 16 and a rising junior at Tidewater Academy, was one of 20 students who volunteered as designers. She eagerly selected a painting of the Rotunda at the University of Virginia where she hopes to one day be a student. Working with a U.Va. souvenir stadium cup and T-shirt as props, Jordan created an arrangement of day lilies and true blue salvia to reflect the U.Va. colors of orange and blue.
Another artist studied the portrait of a woman standing on a stairway, wearing a black teddy and sheer black hose, then worked silky black lingerie into the matching floral arrangement. ``That caught everyone's eye,'' Monahan said.
The Best in Show award is the only one of several dozen awards that carries a small monetary prize. This year the Best in Show was won by an infrared photograph entered by Portsmouth amateur photographer Lynn Greskevitch.
Bennetts Creek mother and daughter Debbie and Beth Hobbs both earned awards with Beth, 11, placing first in the student pen and ink division and Debbie receiving an honorable mention in the professional pastel division.
Debbie Hobbs' pastel depicted a small girl waking up in a darkened bedroom and looking toward a window where dawn was just breaking. The accompanying floral arrangement was a dainty bouquet of small white flowers accented by a miniature bed with the figure of a little girl in it.
On opening night Debbie Hobbs made at least two complete circuits around the show. ``There was just so much to see that the first time I went around looking at the art and the second time I went around looking at how the flowers tied into the art,'' she said.
The Elegance of Form and Flowers'' is held in the Wakefield Foundation's Center for the Arts in Wakefield. The building, originally a school built in 1919 to house grades 1 to 12, was used as a school until the early 1980s. Soon after it became home to the arts center as well as to the Marion Lillian Pittman Troxler Memorial Library, which is operated as a branch of the Walter Cecil Rawls Library in Courtland.
The building also houses a dance studio, a second-floor 335-seat auditorium, a graphic arts studio, and several meeting rooms as well as a gallery.
Throughout the building's renovation the Wakefield Foundation has tried to retain many of the school's original design elements like the lofty ceilings and tall windows that flood the interior with daylight.
Hand-painted designs detail the floors in the building corridors and auditorium. Goodwyn embellished each area with different but coordinating patterns that he painted free hand soon after the arts center was created. ``I spent three months crawling around on my hands and knees with a paintbrush,'' he said.
The foundation is a nonprofit organization and has no paid staff. Its fund-raising efforts are aimed toward maintaining and improving the building and broadening the foundation's outreach programs, including its art exhibitions. ``We just hope to break even,'' Goodwyn said. MEMO: AT A GLANCE
What: ``The Elegance of Form and Flowers''
When: through June 30
Where: Wakefield Foundation Inc. Center for the Arts, 100 Wilson
Ave.
Hours: Gallery is manned by volunteers, so call ahead for gallery
hours or for an appointment to view the exhibit.
Call: 804-899-4405 or 804-899-6005. ILLUSTRATION: Color staff photo on the cover by John H. Sheally II.
Barbara Monahan puts the final touches on her arrangement, which
serves as a backdrop to a chimp sculpture titled ``Pan'' by Trent
Moyer from Elk Grove, Calif.
Staff photo by MICHAEL KESTNER
W.H. Goodwyn III hangs his artwork, ``Friends in the Mist,'' one of
165 pieces on display in ``The Elegance of Form and Flowers.''
Photos
H. Binford Harrell, vice president of the Wakefield Foundation,
submitted ``Purple Stockins.''
Norfolk artist Patty McGuire displayed her work, ``Portrait With
Flower.''
Don Marin's predator sculpture is on display at the Wakefield
Foundation.
by CNB