Flora in Winter
Every year the Worcester Art Museum has a Flora in Winter event where they bring in bunches of flowers and have people make flower arrangements inspired by the art work.
As it’s only 5 miles from us, we’re members so we get in free, and it is something nice in the winter, we usually go.
This year it appeared that everyone else wanted to go as well.
Yes. That line of cars is all trying to turn onto the road that has the parking lot.
So, in a big departure for me, I paid for valet parking. That’s something I almost never do.
But, last time it took us half an hour to find a parking spot, and the $5 was worth it to avoid that.
We decided to start at the top of the museum (4th floor) and move down. That was a great plan to beat the crowds. It only failed to be a great plan totally due to my allergies to flowers and one of the most “fragrant” arrangements being right on the landing between 3 and 4. It wasn’t the biggest, but I think it gave off the most scent.
So, it’s hard to hold your breath and climb the stairs.
Good thing I’ve been riding the bike.
As I said, the flowers are supposed to be inspired by the art. And, they are supposed to be tied to specific pieces.
I don’t always see it.
Some of them are more generic than others.
Some are pretty specific.
Some, I just don’t see the connection at all.
On this one I see it, but am not sure it is really a good tie in.
My wife and I both liked this one.
The floral person didn’t try and just copy the art as the orange oval person did. But, they got something that has similar colors and lines. And, I thought it worked well.
This one, not so much. Flowers inspired by the silver collection?
OK, I get they put spoons in with the flowers.
But, that really doesn’t do much to invoke the collection to me.
This one had the shape, but again didn’t seem to get across anything else from the painting for me.
This was a strange one.
The colors are totally different but I do see a link from it to cupid being tied up on a turtle.
I have to admit I have no idea what the cupid tied up on the turtle is supposed to mean. But, the flowers seemed a good match for it to me.
This one only seemed to get the colors.
There weren’t any in the special exhibit gallery. The special exhibit is a collection of window frames, and I have to say I didn’t get it at all. So, I’m not surprised no florists were inspired by it either.
There were also lots of floor flowers that weren’t tied in to specific pieces, but more to the museum itself.
To me, this one looks like the Ghost of Christmas Future on his other job of delivering happy flowers to people.
Some of the arrangements are quite large.
I have no idea who that woman is providing scale. As the day went on it got harder and harder to keep people out of the photos I was taking.
This is one that didn’t do it for me. There is a special exhibit on the years of the Kennedy presidency.
There is a full sized mural of president Kennedy on the beach.
So, a box of sand with a couple of flowers?
Others didn’t seem to tie in very well.
This is only a 4 day event. And, the Saturday is the busiest day of it.
I’m pretty sure we saw more people in the museum than all the other days we’ve been there in the last year combined.
This one I could see the tie in well.
This one I thought was OK, but a bit too literal.
This one, I just don’t see a countess in those flowers.
These ones seemed to get some of the colors, but I didn’t think they got the scope of the paintings.
It is an art museum, so here is a photo of the benches!
This one seemed to tie in well if you stood in the right spot.
As I said, more and more people kept showing up making it harder and harder to see..
But, zoom cameras and a tall Frank means I could still get photos over people’s heads.
I guess this one matches shape, but still doesn’t seem to capture it well for me...
This one I think did capture it well.
The purple flowers caught the angle wings well. But, I didn’t get a good shot of the painting itself. Sad.
We both thought this one of Saint Jerome was good, even if bigger than the source painting.
Back in the big hall they had some tied died ones to go with the Kennedy exhibit.
There we were beset by Jane the Enthusiastic Docent.
She explained quite a bit to us about the exhibit, what parts she liked, the tour she was going to give, and how much she liked the flowers.
It’s nice to see a docent that fired up about the museum in which they work. But, she did go on a while too...
We escaped and continued on.
I liked this match up even if not a good color match. I will pretend it is a Greek, not Roman, pieces and might have been painted originally.
My wife liked this one outside the chapter house quite a bit.
The one inside was much bigger.
Yeah, they acquired an old chapter house from France in the 1920’s and put it in the museum.
I didn’t think this one matched well.
But, then I was told I was trying to match it to the wrong one.
I mentioned the crowds, right?
It was getting hard to even zoom around the people to get shots.
So, some didn’t come out as well as I hoped.
Sometimes even I got in the way.
This one we both liked, so I waited around to get in closer.
They even flowered the outside of the mens room.
And, the inside as well.
We decided to have lunch in the cafe there. As we got up in that area, Jane the Enthusiastic Docent again caught us.
She told us we should leave yet, her tour was about to start. We explained eating lunch and got a talk about how folks eat there on weekdays from local businesses and how exciting that is.
And, that we should get in line as it was busy.
“Well, it’s all for the good of the museum, right?” My wife asked her.
“You aren’t a trustee are you?” she asked, with fear coming into her eyes. “That’s the sort of thing a trustee would say?”
We explained we were not trustees, just folks who had worked at other museums in the city, and that seemed to relax her.
I got in line while my wife checked out the lobby.
We hope these fish end up going to a nice home after the exhibit is over...
And, it is nice they have things for kids to do.
We had out lunch. They even put flowers on the plate.
One of my wife’s coworkers happened to be sitting next to us, and Jane dropped by a final time to make sure our meals were OK. (I guess putting off her tour just in case we were tied in to the trustees. We aren’t.)
I will say it is the most full I have seen the cafe.
After lunch we decided to get going. The lot for the valet parking was more than 100% full.
They had to back my little green car down the drive way the wrong way to get it to me. I stopped them half way and walked to them. This seemed to annoy the person who was in line ahead of us, but I had a claim ticket for my car and he had lost his. So, I didn’t feel bad.
I’m glad the museum gets a lot of traffic for this. It’s a nice way of getting people in the door.