BEAUTIFUL BLOSSOMS ARE COMPOSITIONS OF PASSION NOW

Artist Portia Munson devotes much of her existence to Beautiful Blossoms. She lives on a farm in upstate New York, where she grows oodles of flowers and is surrounded by oodles more growing wild.

Munson then harvests and uses the blossoms as her medium in creating her magnificent flower series. They reflect her both her aesthetic passion for flowers and her passion for environmental causes.

Her recent solo show, Little Suns, Hollow Bones, transformed the Cross Contemporary Art Gallery, in Saugerties, New York, into a world of flowers, plants, bones and creatures, with new imagery derived from the flora and fauna of the Catskills and Hudson Valley region. See it now through May 31, 2015.

Munson’s blossoms compositions are often in a mandala format. We featured some of her earlier work in our post, Flower Mandalas Both Spin & Center You.      .

When Munson sets out to create a new piece, she chooses flowers in bloom on that day in her garden. Then, in a meditative exercise, Munson places each blossom, each leaf, and each petal, organizing them together as her vision flows. 

Munson then digitally scans the blossom mandalas after they are constructed to capture their ephemeral nature for posterity. 

According to Claire Lambe in Roll Magazine, “although preserved through the magic of digital technology, are as ephemeral as sand paintings,” and as a reviewer for The New Yorker stated, “(have) a seductive luminosity; each floral element appears to emit light.”

Check out Munson’s blossom mandalas installed in the public space of the MTA Station at 42nd Street and 6th Avenue in Manhattan entitled Botanicals Below Bryant Park.

See more of Portia Munson’s works here.

New York Times Article about Portia Munson: http://bit.ly/pmccanyt

Munson has taught at NYU, Yale School of Art, Vassar College and SUNY Purchase. She holds a BFA from Cooper Union and a MFA from Rutgers. Munson has received fellowships from Yaddo, MacDowell, Skowhegan, Fine Arts Work Center Provincetown, Art Omi, and others. Her work has been reviewed and written about in many publications including The New York Times, Art in America, Newsweek, Harper’s, USA Today, The New Yorker, Flash Art and Artforum.

Read more about Beautiful Blossoms, as they relates to  Arts/Design, Nature/Science, Food/Drink, Place/Time, Mind/Body, and Soul/Impact including  10 Beautiful Books Bursting with Blossoms, Bees & Blossom are Rocking Down on the Farm Now, and  10 Ways to Feast on Beautiful Blossoms Now.

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IMAGE CREDITS:

1. Image: by Portia Munson. Peony.
2. Image: by Portia Munson. May Apples.
3. Image: by Portia Munson. Hyacinth Rain.
4. Image: by Portia Munson. Poppy Peony.
5. Image: by Portia Munson. Crocus Bulbs.
6. Image: by Portia Munson. Golden Crowned Kinglet.
7. Image: by Portia Munson. Cosmos Sun.
8. Image: by Portia Munson. Flower Mandala.
9. Image: by Portia Munson. Delphinium Rose Lily Aftermath.
10. Image: by Portia Munson. Sunflower Thistle.
11. Image: by Portia Munson. Cedar Wax Wing.
12. Image: Courtesy of BeautifulNow. BN App.