I was taking photos of the snow yesterday, for our gallery, and noticed the light inside the house. The snow outside was bouncing the light up onto the ceilings, which bounced it down again and made the colours–we’re not shy about colour: orange, green, purple, yellow–pretty interesting. Very cool but not thin. A very northern, spare kind of light. I am a poor photographer. It doesn’t help that my camera is about ten years old. (Well, okay, maybe seven. But old.) But I think I’d be crap even with a brilliant bit of technology. Which is my way of saying the pictures don’t show anything remotely resembling what I saw.
However. One of the photos I took was of a collage (9′ x 4′) on our living room wall. Our artist neighbour, Vicki Platts-Brown, made it for us from leaves and flowers–many from our garden– pressed and dried between paper. She titled it “Reflections of the Puget Sound Tapestry.” I call it Petalville.
Ours was the very first collage she made. She was learning as she went along. A few weeks ago we noticed cracks developing vertically in the mosaic of leaves, and a lot of fading. Vicki took the picture away and literally took a paint scraper to it, taking off a lot of the original leaves. She replaced them with similar leaves and flowers–though this time dried in a high-tech microwave thingie–and slathered on a UV protective coat. The pictures are similar but not identical.
Here, for your delight and delectation, are Petalville I, photo taken in summer with the door open:
and petalville II, taken yesterday, with the door shut. A prize (don’t know what yet) to the person who spots the most differences. And one to the person who can name the most flowers and leaves.
Since making this for us, Vicki has really got into her art. We now have several other collages, and a handful of lovely, delicate aquatints. She doesn’t have a website. I’ll try to remember to take pix of the other stuff in a week or two.
I’m hoping I’ll have a few more blog posts before the end of the year about artists I know–I mean know personally–and their art. There’s a lot of beauty in the world.
Speaking of which, here are two pix I took of the snow yesterday morning. It was dull and overcast and, as I’ve said, I didn’t catch the light (probably something to do with the fact that it was too damn cold to actually go out there; I took these through the open window.
This is the side deck and ravine:
And this is the back garden as seen from my office window. All the leaves, finally, have fallen from the tree. It must be winter.
Nicola Griffith 
Petalville is indeed beautiful. What a great idea.And yes, interesting to notice the change in the light. The color change is really evident on the white ceiling – it’s so blue in the new pic.Hmm, there are so many differences, they really seem too many to enumerate. I’m thinking about cheating and openning them in photoshop, tweak the color so they match and lay them on top of each other. But, I don’t really have time for that right now. Maybe later, if no one chimes in to win.Beautiful piece. I love how it brings nature in side your house.
Petalville I and II are, indeed, two different pieces of art. I wouldn’t even attempt to count the differences, it’d be easier to count the similarities. Both pictures look awesome close up. It’s also nice to see snow again. Even though I keep saying how I really would love to have a blizzard for Christmas, I remember when my car was locked in the garage in Chicago for an entire week due to the masses of snow that had been pushed outside of my garage door by the snow trucks. I do not miss shoveling the stuff!!! We had rain all afternoon today and at one point I actually saw my breath. Well, it’ll be in the 60s again later in the week and we’ll be running around in shorts again… Oh yeah, the funny thing is, I found a flower today at work and decided to dry it and maybe make something out of it for “someone” for Christmas… I was just thinking what are the odds! I don’t usually think of flowers and today they have been following me around. :)
jennifer, tiegrr, yep, too many differences to get serious with a list. And, yes, it’s lovely to have nature inside the house (without having to water or prune or spray). One of the things I love about the picture is the texture. At some point I’ll take a pic from the side to show that.
>A few weeks ago we noticed cracks developing vertically in the mosaic of leaves, and a lot of fading. Vicki took the picture away and literally took a paint scraper to it, taking off a lot of the original leaves.I have to admit, I cringed upon first reading this bit. You might recall how taken I was with Petalville during my last visit. So I thought about why I might react that way and realized that, despite its being made of /very/ dead leaves, I thought/think of Vicki's work as … alive. And her redo felt initially more like a killing or wounding than what it was, a restoration.
I know what you mean. We felt utterly bereft during the week it was gone. The blank wall was desolate without the leaves and flowers–especially as the world outside was leaden.