Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 21, 1991 TAG: 9102220306
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: S-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOBBIE SLOUGH/ SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"I do not destroy them," says Yopp, who saves any dead ones she finds, and ones found by her friends.
Yopp's hobby is not nearly as macabre as it sounds: Those dead butterflies are used in her arrangements of dried flowers.
Dead butterflies and dried flowers hardly sound like the stuff of Victorian art, but Yopp uses them to create "flower pictures" arranged in antique picture frames.
Yopp, who says she's always been interested in flowers, was "looking for some unique way to keep them" when she ran across her inspiration: Victorian-era flower arrangements pressed and framed.
At first, Yopp says, she could not find any information on how the flower pictures were made, especially how the flowers were preserved. Finally, she found something called the "Chinese method" of pressing flowers under weights between layers of special paper. Yopp, however, keeps the details of the process a guarded secret.
According to Yopp, a Southwest Roanoke resident, the flowers for her creation must be picked in bright sunlight, and absolutely must not be damp. At first, she began picking her subjects along the side of the road while she went on long walks. Eventually, however, she began moving farther afield to find the wildflowers that characterize her work.
Her "flower warehouse" is a screened porch filled with cardboard boxes of flowers stored between layers of paper towels. But the inspiration, says Yopp, comes from the antique frames.
"When I pick up the frame, I get an idea of what to do," says Yopp. "I never do two exactly alike."
Yopp's interest in antiques is not limited to picture frames for her flowers. Her house is full of antique furniture, and she collects antique clothes and hats as well. The clothes, which she wears regularly, date back to the 1950's or earlier. "I've always admired the style, and it went along with my interest in antiques in general," says Yopp.
"If I can buy something old, I'd rather have that than something new."
Through all her creations, Yopp's background as an artist comes through. She studied painting and worked as head artist for a duck decoy company for eight years.
"I already had a background in color and composition and perspective and that's how I arrange the flowers - like I was going to paint them. I think that's one reason they're so successful."
Yopp selects distinctive backgrounds to go with her unusual frames: usually velvets and upholstery fabrics that add texture and depth to the pictures. The process she uses to attach the background is as closely guarded as her secrets for drying the flowers.
Even though her flower creations are a sideline for her, Yopp has enjoyed great success.
She had a very popular booth at Olde Salem Days last fall and has her first pictures in a gallery-style shop in Monterey. But she doesn't see her hobby as a future career.
"I enjoy doing it now, and I don't want to make it a big business, but I think I probably could."
In the meantime, Yopp, who has worked at General Electric for more than 20 years, will keep on picking flowers on her lunch hour and collecting dead butterflies.
by CNB