two inspiring things

There is still more road trip diary to post, and I still have to upload all the pictures, but before I do...

I've been inspired by two ways of approaching plants in art. First, Adia Millett's installation at the Sesnon's Some Assembly Required show is really beautiful. Apparently it will change over time, but when I saw it, she had a floor covered in mulch (something that would really add to the greenhouse installation at the MAH, I think...) and a huge orb hanging from the ceiling with a light inside. It looked like papier maché, but it also had a latexy quality to it. There's a hole in the side, and when you look in, you see a tiny little seedling.

I've been really struggling to grow my piñon seedlings--out of my most recent batch of 12, only 3 sprouted, maybe 4. And of those, it is still early, it's possible they will not all survive. Next time I'm going to try really soaking them after i plant the seeds. Anyway, this trouble with seedlings made me consider more visually stunning ways of displaying fewer seedlings. This orb thing is really inspiring. Although I wouldn't do exactly that, of course, I definitely started thinking of ways to light the seedlings, etc.

This is another Adia Millett piece, a photograph, with a plant involved. More elaborate than her installation in the Sesnon, but similarly beautiful.

The Sesnon installation supposedly has a webcam component but I have not gotten it working yet: http://192.168.1.101:8080/webcam.html

Another art project I've been really into lately is Alison Knowle's A Bean Concordence. It's a book project, and basically collages together recipes, news items, stories and photographs about beans. I haven't finished looking through it, but at first glance, I'm really interested in producing something similar for this project, maybe incorporating my thesis paper/making a book that would be both the paper and an art work/collage.