Tag: Bottle trees

Naturalistic Bottle Trees by Stephanie Dwyer

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Tree-shaped wire frames covered in blue bottles

Bottle tree installation at the Shangri La Botanical Gardens in Orange, Texas

Many bottle trees you’ll see – assuming you see bottle trees at all – are stiff. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but Southern folklore metal artist, Stephanie Dwyer, sets hers apart by making them sinuous and twisty, like real trees.

Bottle tree with colourful bottles with shacks

Bottle tree at Shack Up Inn, bent over as if by the wind

Her iconic bottle tree, part of a series inspired by Hurricane Katrina, channels lone trees all over the world, carved into art forms by the wind on some exposed ridge. It seems to grow out of the turf at the Sack Up Inn, and to nod with respect and resilience to its shadow.   Continue reading →

On Being Green

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In response to the Weekly Photo Challenge It IS Easy Being Green! I’ve obediently tried out a gallery. The format allows us to compare and contrast the great variety in greenness, as in any colour in nature, but it doesn’t let me explain what the pictures are – and you’ll be hard pressed to make out much detail on a smartphone. So here they are a bit bigger, with descriptions:  Continue reading →

Shack Up Inn

Red, White and Blues in The Delta

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An old song drifted into my mind when I saw this week’s photo challenge prompt:

As I sit and bathe
In a wave of nostalgia
For an age yet to come.

Pete Shelley

That thought is perhaps best left dangling like a participle, though there is an oblique connection (trust me, there always is) to these oversized branding signs. They’re part of a past that I’ll never fully understand. I don’t know what DX stands for (I cropped the D out). I can’t even date them.

I used to see adverts and film segments on British TV showing American trucks pulling into American petrol stations, or teenagers hanging out in cars, getting soda from a drive-through that looked like a petrol station. In my naivety, I used to think this was nostalgia – that these scenes were retro-styled, hankering back to a loved, lost past. I didn’t realise it’s like that now. In places.

The present looks different, depending on where you are. American trucks really are L-shaped, with bonnets (hoods) like oversized cars. Sonics exist. No need for nostalgia – if a soda float floats your boat, it’s right here, right now.

But back to the signs and their context. Their bold colours and logos were once deployed to promote things, but today they’ve retired to the country. Together with a lot of old, corrugated tin and reclaimed wood, they now reside at one of the world’s most characterful B&Bs.  Continue reading →

Celebrating Man-Made and Natural Curves

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Orange Chihuly Art Glass

In this week’s photo challenge, Cheri asks for curves suggesting we might find them in architecture, bends in nature or man-made undulations.

I immediately thought of a recent visit to Chihuly’s Garden And Glass Museum in Seattle, where a cornucopia of curves can be found, not just in the sinuous art glass, but in the garden design and plant choices too.

Glass orb with fern

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