Area Shows, Stores Sprout with Art for Green Thumbs

Bright-white plastic was beginning to drive Linda Meek crazy. The flower lover could not stand to have her beautiful blooms and plant vignettes bumping heads with the distracting white supports attached to her hanging containers and pots.

Out of her frustration grew innovation. 

“I started cutting those white things off and making my own hangers out of copper,” recalled Meek, an art director with Dearborn-based Team Detroit. “Then I thought, ‘Hey, I think I’ll put some beads on these.’”

The copper supports became so popular that Meek now sells them through her business, Wired On Pot. The Birmingham resident adorns each of her colorful creations with vintage beads from old necklaces and other pieces of jewelry that she finds at flea markets and Salvation Army stores. This Saturday, her artful hangers will be a highlight at the Garden Party, 10 a.m.-6 p.m., in Berkley. 

“There are so many great things you can decorate your garden with,” said Royal Oak artist Holly Laginess, who owns By Golly By Holly. She also will be at the Yellow Door Garden Party, selling her artistic garden stakes.

“I’m seeing a huge increase in orders for my work," she said, while preparing to ship some 600 of her stakes across the country. “I think people are staying home more, not vacationing as much and turning their gardens into little outdoor sanctuaries.” 

Laginess started making the stakes about eight years ago after making jewelry for several years.

“I was a ceramic artist in college and the jewelry thing was getting stale, so I slowly started integrating ceramics into my work.”  The long stakes pop with colorful ceramic flowers, birds and other accents that she creates at her home studio.  “They’re very happy. And my birds are really kooky and funky.”

Other artists at the show will display stacked glass creations, metal trellises and giant concrete leaves that can serve as birdbaths or feeders or simply as art in the garden.

Yellow Door owner April McCrumb of Beverly Hills is also excited about West Bloomfield artist Pat Swistak and her flower stakes. “They’re made out of repurposed home wares,” she said. 

The shape of things

More garden art is blooming in the hands of artist Chris Hopp of Farmbrook Designs. Based in Royal Oak, Hopp’s business features decorative lightweight concrete, called Hypertufa. Consisting of various aggregates that are bonded together using cement, “it’s made to resemble stone, but is half the weight,” explained Hopp, who made his first pot 11 years ago.

Not only does he create planters and troughs, but also lanterns, mushrooms and other shapes. 

“This type of cement can stay outdoors year-round,” said Hopp, who makes his own molds. “I’m continuously revising the molds that I have and adding new ones.”

Like Laginess, he’s excited to be a part of next weekend’s Royal Oak in Bloom event, which is presented by and runs 7 a.m.-2 p.m. May 8 in front of City Hall in downtown Royal Oak. The gardener's extravaganza features more than 80 vendors selling perennials, annuals, plants, garden art and furniture and more.  

In Birmingham at the (BBAC), art for green thumb enthusiasts will fill the galleries at an upcoming Garden Party, which will help to benefit the BBAC’s Studio 1 outreach programs (they provide art experiences to people in the Detroit region who might not otherwise have access to such).

Garden art created by BBAC faculty and students will be for sale at a preview sale/party 6-8 p.m. May 20. More sales and other activities will take place 1-3 p.m. May 21.  

Expect to see 2- to 3-foot-tall copper flowers (by jewelry/metals artist and BBAC teacher Robin Servo of Bloomfield Hills), diva gardening gloves, wine glasses, table linens and more. Ceramic birdbaths, presented by ceramic artist and BBAC instructor Tracey Priska of Rochester promise to delight.

Joining the instructors in garden-art production are members of the BBAC's Teen Arts Board, including students from Birmingham's Seaholm and Groves high schools.

Rooted in ceramics

Later in the season, more art with a garden theme will be available at the Royal Oak Clay, Glass and Metal Festival, which runs June 11-12 in downtown Royal Oak. Look for Ferndale artist and 33-year potter Priscilla Eggen’s (www.clayetc.com) trillium, iris and tulip pottery. Each piece is oven-, microwave- and dishwasher-safe and each piece is wheel-thrown or hand-built.

“The garden theme was a natural progression for me, as I am an avid gardener and the iris is my favorite flower,” Eggen said. “All my work is functional; the spring garden can be brought into one’s home permanently.”

Area home-decor shops also brim with ideas for the garden. An exceptional emporium is  in Clawson. Here, you can find everything from garden stakes made with recycled glass pieces to brilliant-blue gazing balls.

Whether you’re the creator or owner of garden art, the effect is the same.

“Making it is better than therapy for me,” copper plant-hanger artist Meek said. “I’m in a zone when working on it.”

When you’re in your own patch of green, surrounded by not only flowers, but handmade beauty as well, you’re in a special zone of your own — one that invites contemplation and relaxation … and no distracting white plastic.