Weird, Wild, & Wonderful, The Second Triennial New York Botanical Garden Exhibition, opened in the Garden’s Ross Gallery on April 19. Curated by the American Society of Botanical Artists, the traveling exhibition features contemporary artworks of botanical oddities and curiosities, and includes artists from the US, Australia, Canada, India, Japan, and the UK.

The forty-six included artworks were selected from a field of 238 submissions. Novel adaptations to habitat, reproductive strategies, or defenses against predators have led to some of the incredible diversity of the plant kingdom. Plants also display some unique developmental quirks that occur due to extreme growing situations or invasion by parasitic creatures. Find illumination about biodiversity as depicted by contemporary botanical artists in the exhibition’s forty-six artworks. Exotic species from such locales as Borneo, Australia, Asia, and the Americas join familiar plants we find in our kitchens, all through the lens of the extraordinary. Bat flowers and violet hedgehog mushrooms join strange cacti and parasitic plants in unusual renderings in watercolor, graphite, etching, oil, pen and ink, and colored pencil. Exploratory delight is exhibited by each artist’s original take on the theme.

ASBA is a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting public awareness of contemporary botanical art, to honoring its traditions and to furthering its development.  In its 20th year, ASBA has 1300 members from over 20 countries around the world. More information is available on asba-art.org  as well as information about purchasing the catalog from the exhibit.

“Kind-hearted Monster” heirloom tomato, Solanum lycopersicum, Watercolor on Paper,11” x 14” © ASUKA HISHIKI

Crested Saguaro, Carnegiea gigantea f. cristata, Pen and Ink, 17” x 25”, ©JOAN MCGANN

“Devil’s Claw” Proboscidia louisianica, Aquatint Etching, Hand-colored, Chine Collé, 18” x 12” ©MONIKA E. DEVRIES GOHLKE

“Bat Flower/Cat’s Whiskers”, Tacca chantrieri, Watercolor on Paper, 20” x 16”  © AKIKO ENOKIDO

Weird, Wild, & Wonderful
Second New York Botanical Garden Triennial Exhibition
April 19 – September 21, 2014
The New York Botanical Garden
2900 Southern Blvd, Bronx, NY

Exhibitions are especially difficult when the artists are from all over the world and you want the framing to be consistent. Metropolitan was selected as the sole provider of frames because we are a national company that makes museum quality frames and they are available in different depths to accommodate different artwork presentations. The specifications for the exhibit were our standard maple frames with clear lacquer finish. The artists were provided links to our online ordering and our framing advice section provided information to ensure they were done professionally.

FRAMING SPECIFICATIONS AND ADVICE

101 maple with clear finish

GALLERY FRAMES

Standard Profile: 101, 106, and 105
Type: Standard Gallery Frames
Wood & Finish: maple wood frame with clear lacquer finish
Purchasing Option. joined wood frame, joined wood frame with splines
Custom Frame Spacers: 1/4″, 1/2″, 3/4″ wood frame spacers
Custom Frame Strainers: 1/2, 3/4″ wood frame strainers
Custom frame mats: 4 & 8 ply museum mats
Custom cut matboard: 4 & 8 ply museum matboard
Custom frame acrylic: regular & UV acrylic cut to size
Custom frame backing boards: foamboard, coroplast, and archival corrugated cut to size
Framing Advice: fitting gallery frames

Blake Leigh is our first BFA framing award winner. Providing professional framing advice to art students has been a long term goal of ours. In order to better understand how to accomplish this Metroframe has established a BFA framing award at the University of Minnesota.  Our goal is to help students understand the basics of framing their work and to help us better understand what we may need to do to make the process easier for them.

The following is an interview we did with him to learn more about his work and process.

metroframe
How did you get interested in photography?

Blake Leigh
I first became interested in photography when I started my undergrads. Both sides of my family were interested in photography and all my grandparents had an appreciation for image making, so when I became interested in art, photography was the most natural entry point for me. My family has a history of using cameras and documenting family life so when I started using photography for art, I was drawn to the documentary uses of the camera.

metroframe
What kind of equipment do your use?

Blake Leigh
I alternate between film and digital cameras, but I have an interest in all the different ways I can make images. I enjoy experimenting with different cameras, but when it comes to working on projects I like to find the appropriate tools for each task.

metroframe
Your final BFA project is titled “Waiting for You”. Can you tell us more about the project and why you selected it.

Blake Leigh
“Waiting For You” is a project that I started a year ago and have been working on in my free time since. The project looks at isolated people on the MTA bus system and exploits the ease of viewing people in public. Specifically, I wait outside of bus stops at night time and when each bus stops lights on the interior brighten making the riders easily visible to people waiting out side.

metroframe
I understand you are doing a larger project about surveillance and privacy. What drew you to this subject and what have you found out as you pursue it?

Blake Leigh
“Waiting for You” has opened the door to continually study the ways people act in public when they think they’re not being watched. Since this project started I’ve been able to expand into a larger project where I explore the use of surveillance in public spaces and examine the concerns of privacy in these spaces as well.

PRACTICE/PRACTICE
MAY 6 – MAY 17, 2014
Katherine E. Nash Gallery
Regis Center for Art, University of Minnesota
405 21st Avenue South, Minneapolis, (612) 624-7530
Gallery hours are 11 am to 7 pm, Tuesday through Saturday

FRAMING SPECIFICATIONS AND ADVICE

NIELSEN METAL FRAMES

Profile: Nielsen Profile 117
Finish: black metal frame
Framing Advice: fitting metal frames

Beginning in 1996, the community of Saint John’s Abbey and University in Collegeville, Minnesota, began planning and working on The Saint John’s Bible, the first handwritten, illuminated Bible to be commissioned by a Benedictine monastery in five hundred years.

The New Mexico History Museum is currently hosting an exhibition of original pages of The Saint John’s Bible installed in Metroframe Cases.  This exhibition showcases 44 stunning pages from two of The Saint John’s Bible’s seven volumes – Wisdom Books and Prophets. Fifteen years of painstaking work by some of the finest calligraphers, artists and theologians in the world came to a close last year with the completion of The Saint John’s Bible – a contemporary handwritten and illuminated Bible created by a team of artists and calligraphers at a Scriptorium in Wales. The exhibition at the New Mexico History Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico runs until December 30, 2012. Images Courtesy New Mexico History Museum. Photography by Blair Clark, Exhibition Designer Caroline Lajoie.

FRAMING SPECIFICATIONS AND ADVICE

GALLERY FRAMES

Profile: Custom Milled

Type: Custom Designed Gallery Frame

Wood & Finish: maple wood frame with clear water based finish
Wood & Finish: cherry wood frame with custom cherry finish
Wood & Finish: ash wood frame with black lacquer finish

Purchasing Option: joined wood frame

Custom Wood Spacer: 3″ custom wood spacer

Framing Advice: fitting gallery frames