A trip to the San Francisco Botanical Park, June 16, 2007.

17 Jun '07 9:37 am

We, Lia and I, actually had three stops in mind for this trip. The local branches of the Cactus and Bromeliad Societies had shows and sales in a building at the Botanical Park. From there we walked through the park to the DeYoung Museum where one of Lia's pieces is on display. Then we had coffee at the Museum's restaurant. For the last half hour Lia shopped the bookstore while I raced through the botanical garden snapping picture, ending up at the library where I bought four old Pacific Horticulture magazines for a buck. Then we got in my truck and headed home.

Sorry the photos jump around between the sale/show, the museum and the Botanical Garden. Does anyone know how to move the photos around once they're loaded?

17 Jun '07 10:07 am

What an amazing and inspirational place,Mark and Lia.
Lia's painting is gorgeous - is it oil on canvas? She has captured the shimmery look and made it three dimensional beautifully.
I was delighted to see the NZ court.The big trunk on the left would be a nikau palm,and the other a tree fern,but I am not so sure about the lily thing -it grows wild around damp places but is it native anyone?Pumpkin?Goose?Anna?
Dixie.

17 Jun '07 4:11 pm

I really like this place. The Botanical Garden, the Japanese Tea Garden and the De Young Museum are all in close proximity. The next time I go I'll get more photos of the New Zealand garden. They recently revamped it and there are a lot of parts that are favorites of mine.

That piece of Lia's is actually woven, but you're right about it involving painting too. This one is probably 20 years old. At the time her process involved doing paintings on a kind of paper called abaca. Then she would cut the painting into thin strips and use them as the weft (horizontally). The vertical threads were dyed rayon. After it was woven, she would wash it and squeeze it through a five foot wide press under pressure to drive out the water and force the abaca and the rayon into the same plane. She backed it with canvas and hung the finished pieces with velcro strips. The Saxes are a S.F. bay area couple who collected a lot of craft work, especially glass but also weaving and baskets, who have bequeathed an enormous amount of their collection to the De Young Museum. The museum just reopened last year after the old building was razed and a fancy new one was built. It's pretty edgy with an outer copper shell which looks sort of industrial but nice. I'm going to have Lia go to this site and read your kind words herself.

17 Jun '07 8:39 pm

Well you have given away a big process secret there -the effect is certainly interesting.I had wondered if some of it was stamped on somehow,now I can see it is woven.
We have been having a fairly heated debate in our small town for the last year.We have a local businessman who has the largest collection of contemporary art in NZ,possibly Australia.He has offered it on a constantly changing basis to the town,but we need to build an art gallery to house it and to use for exhibitions.The opposition is vociferous,even though it will only add less than $20 per year to their rates.They are seen as cultural dinosaurs by the Arty types who would love a gallery,and who have raised quite a lot of finance already.
Dixie.

21 Jun '07 5:31 am

I really enjoyed the photos of the gardens, but I was floored by Lia's beautiful art. Having the explanation of how she did it made it even more astounding. It is so dreamlike and three dimensional. I can't imagine how she got that effect by weaving paper and fiber together. I guess that's why she is the artist, huh? Gifted people fascinate me because they have such clear vision about how to create the desired effect. I could sit and stare at the raw materials all day and never think to combine them in this way.

22 Jun '07 2:17 am

I know what you mean about admiring inventiveness, creativity or whatever you may call it. The thing to remember is we all have our areas where we get to express that, we just don't have them all. Moosey/Mary seems to have several such areas with her gardens, photography, writing, singing and piano. Then there is Dixie whose home and garden seem to reflect a creative decision on her part in every detail.

One of the things I've admired about Lia's work is how inventive she has been processwise. Years before I met her, probably 25 years ago, she came up with a way to put photographic imagery directly onto her weavings. She built an enormous flat wooden table on wheels with a wet/dry vacuum cleaner attached in the middle. Then she would take a weaving, bath it in photo reactive chemicals, lay it on the table, put large negatives over that, cover it all with a tarp, wheel it outside and expose the lot to the sun. Then she'd take it back inside and wash out the chemicals. About twenty years ago she spent one year making just two pieces where she painted each thread of two weavings one thread at a time with dye to achieve a pointalist (sp?) effect.

It is definitely fun to be around her creative process and as a bonus I get hours and hours of uninterrupted time in the garden to do my thing without any interferance. Don't forget, Faith, our gardening is also an area for creativity. You wouldn't really trade that for a paint brush & canvas or a loom would you? Me neither.

24 Jun '07 4:56 pm

Hi, Mark, and thanks VERY much for the link to this page. I was beginning to think I was losing it or something, not being able to find it and all!

I thought, at first glance, that Lia's work was quilted; it was good to have the explanation right there about how it was made. As someone else said, it was a complicated process that I certainly never would have thought of! Does Lia still do this kind of work? Or has she moved on already?

I loved the pictures of the succulent show and sale, and I sympathize with you trying to keep the wallet in the pocket in a place such as that! Very Happy

Also, I didn't know that grass trees grew in Mexico - I thought they grew in Australia!! Maybe I mixed them up with some other Aussie plant. It sure was an impressive specimen, wasn't it?

Well, it's just getting dark outside, and some of my garden lights have come on; I'm waiting to see what the new ones will look like (or even if they work at all!!).

That's it for now! Have a great week!

gordonf

28 Jun '07 8:54 am

I have just caught this thread... Mark, this is a fabulous garden and the work of Lia is stunning. When I first clicked on this page I glanced over the pix and went ... nice, then when I read your description of the process behind the artwork I was amazed and went back three times to look at it! Very Happy

Love to see it in real life Wink

Dixie, I can't find reference to this plant being a native either, I have one in my garden which came as a cutting from my brothers garden just recently but have no idea if he bought it or it was just there... Confused

28 Jun '07 11:15 am

Glad you found the thread. The next time I go I will pay attention to photographing the New Zealand part of the garden. At the S. F. Botanical Garden they've tried to emphasize garden plants from the mediterranian climate areas of the globe. So they have an extensive area of South African flora, another for Chile, two adjoining areas for New Zealand and Australia, and an enormous area for California native plants. Funny but I don't recall if there is one for the Mediterranian region. The gardens for New Zealand and Chile have recently received a lot of attention as has another area I like called "Cloud Forrests of the New World". These plants tend to do well in our foggier areas such as San Francisco itself, and to a lesser degree Berkeley.

I'm not sure which plant you were refering to that you received as a cutting from your brother. Is that the one Dixie referred to as the "lilly thing"? If its that big leafed plant in the near right corner I'll check the name the next time I go. I thought it might be an Alocasia but I didn't know any of them were from N.Z.

Thanks for your interest in Lia's work. If you'd like to see more pictures of Lia's work she has a website at www.liacook.com/ . In an earlier post I told Dixie how Lia had been to Canberra, Australia to be in a show there. She enjoyed it and wants to work out a way to go back there with me and this time she wants to go to N.Z. too.

Nice to hear from you Pumpkin. I think my tea break has got to be over. I'm out for summer break from teaching and have been working on building better storage for my tools outside. When it is further along I'll post some pics.

29 Jun '07 10:44 am

'Cloud Forests of the New World' sounds interesting, can you expand on this?

Yes, 'Dixies' lily' was the one Cool

I thought it may have been an Alocasia too but I don't think we have any here which are native to NZ. Looked great with the palm tho Wink

Thanks for that link to Lia's work. She is wonderfully talented and has chosen a quite different medium to work with.
I have a sister who paints conventionally and it fascinates me how some people can make such beauty out of a few bits of paint or fabric.
If Lia ever does have her art displayed down this way, please give us a heads up.

Enjoy your break, don't work too hard Wink

A trip to the San Francisco Botanical Park, June 16, 2007.

A trip to the San Francisco Botanical Park, June 16, 2007.

quite a plce

Thanks Dixie,

Lia's work

Lia's artwork

Thanks Faith.

Speechless!

Hi Pumpkin

Howdy Mark :)