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Insider's Guide to the Festival with Liz French |
That there is beauty in decay is an encouraging thought at my age. It makes me less afraid to look in the mirror.
Beauty in decay is an idea which is popping up in our Garden Festival. Artist Graham Crow is one person taken with the beauty to be found in nature past its prime. It is the theme of his NZ Garden & Art Festival installation at Gallery 59 (59 Ninth Avenue).
In a frieze that completely surrounds the interior of the gallery he artistically expresses the gradual decay and change in colour of the hydrangea petal. It's a stunning evocation of the beauty of nature in all its stages. The installation is open now.
The Festival‘s Flora Fashion exhibition explores the beauty in decay theme as well. Ten designers have been given hunks of hessian and challenged to create a piece of wearable art using stuff they find in the garden.
My sneak preview suggests they have gone all out in re-purposing garden waste that would usually end up in the rubbish. Natasha Postill has dried and sliced fallen citrus fruit to create a lace effect on her hessian dress for the Garden Bride.
Other designers are using seed packets, snail shells and all manner of garden muck to make beauty. You can view the results at The Lakes Expo Pavilion from Friday to Sunday, November 21-23. Entry is free.
The beauty in decay theme is only appreciated in the Bay.
Photographer Emma Bass has made it her mission to show how vases of flowers look equally gorgeous about the time most people would be chucking them out. Google her and see how she finds beauty in dropping blooms. I'd like to think my droopy bits were as attractive!