Autumn, time of Leaves

Last year, roughly at this time, I collected some of the beautiful leaves that literally cover my path back home. Surely, I had in mind to create something with them, which I never did at the end. Luckily, and certainly with a million time better results that I could have gained, some artists don’t give up and create inspiring pieces out of this beautiful medium…

(suggested soundtrack: November by Azure Ray, here)

WALTER MASON

A land artist, Walter Mason has created a series of works and installations inspired by the seasons. Here some from his Fall intervention in and with nature:
For more of Walter Mason exciting pieces of land art visit his Flickr page here. (via My Modern Metropolis)

RACHEL SOKAL

Rachel Sokal practices an alternative form of photography. The works are chlorophyll prints, with no photoshop involved. Sokal places a photo printed onto clear acetate on top of a leaf. The acetate image creates a protective filter while time and sunlight make the rest: 

Rachel Sokal works with many forms of photography. Check her website here.

MEHDI MOEENI

Illustrator Mehdi Moeeni has created lovely images of animals, shaped with leaves. They are so simple and yet so unique: 

(via Design Swan)

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Flora Metamorphicae – harmony between art and nature

The collaborative project Flora Metamorphicae reinterprets the traditional use of decorative ceramics and flower motives, creating incredibly beautiful installations that harmonically integrate within both nature and exhibiting spaces. The original idea for Flora Metamorphicae dates back to 2003, when a group of professional ceramists based in Bergen (Norway) were looking together at a catalogue of historical ceramic’s pieces. Inspired by their elegant and elaborate beauty, they decided to give new artistic life and an original ethos to the creation and use of ceramics. Since 2006, Flora Metamorphicae is a group of six women (Kari Aasen, Lippa Dalèn, Siri Haaskjold, Bjørg Hougen, Audhild Rypdal and Eli Veim). Each of them keeps working individually, but in this project they join forces and creative imagination in the name of a commune sense of beauty. There is just one imperative for the creation of the flowers: they must be handmade and no more than two hands big. In the years the variety of flowers – naturalistic or imaginative ones – has increased, mirroring the surprisingly incessant offer of colours and shapes of nature.These amazing installations appeal for their immediate vibrant beauty. But their meaning goes beyond being decorative and it is revealed through their ever changing aspect, when they are installed within the open environment. In the tradition of land art, they assume a deeper power in their co-existence with nature, in their response to it. When installed in water locations (like lakes, ponds but also dams) they astonishingly react to lights, reflections and the ebb and flows, offering a show that is never the same. Submerged and shining with reflections at times, blossoming out of water when the tides retire, these pieces of art harmonically enter into dialogue with the environment,  blurring the separation line between nature and artifact.But the work by Flora Metamorphicae has a joyful life also in the close of gallery spaces, where it re-asserts its status as art. The flowers are thickly assembled on floors, drawing elegant patterns or simply invading the space. In this second life, they bring with them the traces (grains of sand and similar) that they inherited from their life in the open.

With their collaborative production, Flora Metamorphicae seem to bring alive the idea that individuality and collective cohesion are not opposite forces, just like natural and manufactured can enter into harmonic conversation. All images courtesy of Flora Metamorphicae.

Flora Metamorphicae website.

Iain Blake – Stone Footprints

To try not to smile with tenderness looking at the series Stone Footprints by Iain Blake is an impossible task. Like many forms of gentle and delicate simplicity, this body of work goes beyond any possible description.

The Tree Hugger Project

The Tree Hugger Project is an ongoing project aimed at raising awareness towards the vital importance of re-establighing a connection with nature.

[  Italian version]

Jim Denevan’s mind blowing Sand Art

Jim Denevan uses sand as a canvas for creating stunning temporary drawings that  waves and wind naturally dissolve.

[ Italian version]