For the sixth year, woodturners from throughout New England will exhibit their work at the Arnold Arboretum. Using a lathe to form their pieces, woodturners create practical objects or “turn” to the purely aesthetic, resulting in a show that appeals to the eye and the touch. For more information on this free exhibit, including hours, visit https://arboretum.harvard.edu/events/#ds-3 (Image: “Cherry Root Bowl,” Steve Wiseman)
This October 3 talk on The English Rose in Life and Textiles is with Mary Schoeser, sponsored by The Gardens Trust. The talk is part of a 6-part Gardens Trust online lecture series, exploring how flowers and gardens have inspired textile artists, begins Mondays at 18:00 BST, equivalent to 2 pm Eastern time. Here in their latest series of talks they are taking a sideways view by exploring how gardens and flowers have influenced and inspired other arts and crafts. This first series of 6 will focus on textiles and explore some of the historical and technical aspects of embroidering, weaving and printing using floral designs on fabric. You will look at textiles from Elizabethan crowns to Edwardian table linen to see how flowers provided inspiration, taking in the prolific art embroiderers of the Arts and Crafts Movement. Then you will be brought bang up to date with two contemporary embroiderers with very different approaches to floral imagery who will share their design processes with us.
This talk follows the fate of the rose as depicted in English textiles of the 19th century. Acknowledging two French Queens who helped to establish the royal connotations of this flower, it turns to Victoria and the impact of both the ‘Gardenesque’ and the Great Exhibition of 1851, particularly on members of the Arts & Crafts circle. The resulting ‘branch and net’ theory of design is seen in works by William Morris and others, including his daughter May, who also personifies the epithet, an ‘English Rose’.
This ticket (click HERE to purchase) is for this individual session and costs £5, and you may purchase tickets for other individual sessions via the links below, or you may purchase a ticket for the entire course of 6 sessions at a cost of £24 via the link here.
Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days prior to the start of the talk, and again a few hours before the talk. A link to the recorded session (available for 1 week) will be sent shortly afterwards.
Mary Schoeser FRSA is a Senior Honorary Research Fellow at the V&A, Honorary President of the Textile Society and Patron of both the Bernat Klein Foundation and the School of Textiles. Mary has collaborated with many museums, including the Fashion Textile Museum, the V&A and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. As an historic textiles advisor she has worked with English Heritage, the National Trust and private house owners, and as a consultant archivist, with organizations such as Laura Ashley, Sanderson and the John Lewis Partnership. A prolific author of many books including World Textiles: A Concise History (2003); Sanderson: The Essence of English Decoration (2010) and Textiles: The Art of Mankind (2012). Her latest book is The Art of Wallpaper: Morris & Co. in Context (2022).
Autumn is a great time to assess your woody plants for shape, structure and health. This Berkshire Botanical Garden October 1 demonstration/workshop will focus on pruning, including when, why and how to shape, renovate, train, or rejuvenate your woody plants. Learn about pruning tools, timing and specific techniques available to the home gardener. Pruning techniques for both evergreen and deciduous hedges will be covered. Dress to be outside, and bring pruners. The class runs from 10 – 1, and is $20 for BBG members, $28 for nonmembers. Register at https://www.berkshirebotanical.org/events/fall-pruning
Ken Gooch is the former forest health program director for the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation. Additionally, he is a Massachusetts-certified arborist and teaches arboriculture at the Garden.
