Daily Archives: February 1, 2014

Sunday, February 2, 1:00 pm – Mary Kocol Garden Photography Gallery Talk and Artist Reception

February 1, 2014 by Boston Flora

Mary Kocol is a fine art and editorial photographer based in Boston. She’s a recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship and several Massachusetts Local Cultural Council grants. Editorial clients include The New York Times Magazine, Boston Magazine, and Doubleday. Kocol is represented by Gallery NAGA on Newbury Street in Boston.

Mary Kocol’s photography has received acclaim for its transformation of ordinary domestic and street scenes, located often in her residence in Somerville, Massachusetts, into dramatic, richly colored compositions that convey an uncanny sense of both day and night. By photographing at dusk, with prolonged exposures, Kocol creates a melding of daytime and evening that transforms the mundane into the fantastic.

In addition to her medium format (6×9) work, Kocol shoots with a plastic lens toy camera, producing images in which she uses the cameraâ€™s imperfections and its vagaries of focus. Examples of her photography are in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Meet Mary on Sunday, February 2 at 1 pm at Tower Hill Botanic Garden, 11 French Drive in Boylston, for a gallery talk and reception, or visit Tower Hill through February 23 to see the exhibit. Free with admission to the garden.

Saturday, February 8, 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm – Freedom and Responsibility in My Approach to Garden Design

February 1, 2014 by Boston Flora

The Berkshire Botanical Garden is honored to welcome guest lecturer Louis Benech for its 2014 Winter Lecture taking place on February 8th, 2014 titled Freedom And Responsibility In My Approach To Garden Design. The event will begin at 2 pm at Monument Mountain High School, 600 Stockbridge Road, Great Barrington.

In â€œFreedom and Responsibility,â€ Mr. Benech will will share his methods and attitudes when approaching gardens for restoration and new creation. Benech will also present his current work, a contemporary reinterpretation of a garden from one of Franceâ€™s greatest periods of history: the Bosquet du TheÃ¢tre dâ€™Eau, one-and-a-half hectares at the foot of the Chateau of Versailles, originally designed by Andre Le Notre for Louis the XIVth and since ruined. This is a rare glimpse into the creative process of one of the worldâ€™s master designers that you wonâ€™t want to miss!

Louis Benech came to gardening through his love of plants. After studying law, he went to work at the famous Hillier Nurseries in England. Captivated by what he learned there, he returned to France to work as a gardener in a private garden in Normandy. In 1985, he began his career as a garden designer and landscape architect. Five years later he was commissioned, with Pascal Cribier and FranÃ§ois Roubaud, to redesign the historic part of the Tuileries gardens.

Since then, he has designed and carried out some 300 projects, from Korea to Panama, from New Zealand to the United States. While most of his work has been for private individuals, he has also received commissions from large multinational companies such as HermÃ¨s, Axa and Novartis. But he has also worked on many established historic gardens, such as those at the ElysÃ©e Palace, the ChÃ¢teau de Chaumont-sur-Loire, the gardens of the Archives Nationales in Paris, and the Achilleion in Corfu. He is currently working on the creation of a new garden in the Water Theatre Grove of the Palace of Versailles.

In each of his projects, Louis Benech strives to create a genuine harmony between the landscaping design and the architectural or natural environment of the site. Ideally, he would like his work to pass undetectedâ€¦ He pays special attention to finding the most economical way to ensure that his gardens will endure, and their upkeep is one of his key concerns.

BBG member price $35, nonmember $45. Register at www.berkshirebotanical.org.

Tuesday, February 11, 7:30 pm – Phyto-Predation and Phylogeny of Lepidochrysops Butterflies and Relatives

February 1, 2014 by Boston Flora

Yes, you read that right. February’s Cambridge Entomological Club meeting will be held on Tuesday the 11th at 07:30 PM in in room 101 of the Museum of Comparative Zoology. Dr Marianne Espeland will present a talk entitled From host plants to host ants: phyto-predation and phylogeny of Lepidochrysops butterflies and relatives.

More than 99.99% of the approximately 200,000 described Lepidoptera species are phytophagous. Only around 500 species are aphytophagous and feed mainly on other insects or their secretions. Aphytophagy is most common in the butterfly family Lycaenidae where it has evolved independently several times, but mostly as single species in otherwise phytophagous clades. One exception is the Afrotropical genus Lepidochrysops, with 137 described species, all assumed to be predaceous on ant brood or fed by trophallaxis from the third instar until pupation. Little is known about their life history, the relationships among the five genera in the Euchrysops section, and even less about the relationships among species within Lepidochrysops. Dr Espeland’s aim is to infer a phylogeny of the Euchrysops section and answer questions about the evolution of predation and diversification of the group.

If you can make head or tail of that description, the meeting is free and open to the public. Snacks will be provided and you are also welcome to join us at 6:00 PM for an informal pre-meeting dinner at the Cambridge Common.