Current Obsessions: State of the Arts

Perhaps it stems from all the design events happening in NYC, but we’ve been keen on exploring the intersection of plants and art, botanical life and design. Read on to see what’s been inspiring us this week.

Above: This weekend the juried art and design festival BKLYN Designs will be in Greenpoint, Brooklyn showcasing Brooklyn-based designers, artists, and makers, including WrenLab ceramics, seen here. The show will include more than 65 participating designers, as well as themed lounges, workshops, demonstrations, art installations and local food and drink.

BKLYN Designs is open May 6 through 8 at the Brooklyn Expo Center at 72 Noble St. in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Tickets are $15 for the general public; Gardenista readers can earn a $5 discount per ticket with the code GARDENISTA5. The show is free for students and members of the trade or media.

• Here are 6 clever ways to keep flowers alive.
• These tiny backyards showcase big outdoor design possibilities.
• The hottest gardening trends of this year (according to Pinterest).

Above: This year’s American Design Club presentation for NYCxDESIGN week is titled “Growth.” It includes various botanically-inclined designs with plants supplied by The Sill. Growth runs May 7 – 11 at the Design Pavilion on Astor Place.

• This “magical” garden lives “at the end of a winding lane bordered by a tangle of honeysuckle and wild roses.”
• A new exhibit at the Jewish Museum in New York highlights the work of the late Roberto Burle Marx, a Brazilian modernist and one of the 20th century’s most influential landscape artists.

Above: We’ve had our eye on Poppy Print Studio, a Lawrence, Kansas-based wallpaper studio founded by artist Jennifer Hunt. Each of Hunt’s design-driven prints lend a botanical-meets-graphic not to a room.

• The most beautiful deconstructed bouquet.
• The best foraged plants for a Mother’s Day bouquet.

Our Latest Instagram Obsession

Above: The posts of SF-based Birch provide a visual venture into the world of vibrant color and design (@birchsf).

For more Gardenista, visit our latest issue: In Bloom.