ISLAND STYLE
Flower show features handmade, wearable art
By Paula Rath
Advertiser Fashion Writer
When Tanya Alston works in her garden, she doesn't see ali'i poe (canna lily) seeds — she sees Tahitian pearls.
Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser
When she walks the aisles of the supermarket, she doesn't merely sift through white beans and allspice — she checks their shape to see if they measure up as a gold clasp or jewel-like leaf.
Tanya Alston designed "Petal to the Metal," made of plant material, including leaves and seeds.
Alston is training her eye to see what nature has to offer, because her garden and shopping forays have focused on a single goal: creating an award-winning piece of jewelry from plants, seeds and flowers.
She is among the Garden Club of Honolulu artists who will enter their intricate handmade floral jewelry into "The Academy in Bloom," a flower show Friday through Sunday at The Honolulu Academy of Arts.
This year, the garden club is thinking outside the garden walls, expanding the categories to allow for new avenues of artistic expression beyond horticulture and flower arranging. Two categories, jewelry ("Just Pinned" and "Bejeweled"), and hats ("Hats Off to George," a tribute to George Ellis, the recently retired director of the art museum), are fashion-oriented.
Only dried plant materials may be used, but materials such as metal or twine may be included for construction.
Taking their inspiration from Tiffany and Neiman Marcus catalogs as well as fashion magazines, these talented women combine creativity and craftsmanship to create intricate, rhythmical works of wearable art.
A flower and horticultural show dedicated to the Honolulu Academy of Arts and retiring president and director George Ellis
Alston's elegant necklace, titled "Metal to the Petal," is crafted from hydrangea petals that she painted with a mixture of nail polish and metallic powder. Other flowers are wood roses she took apart. She used sea grape leaves from her garden, and allspice leaves from her spice jar.
'The Academy in Bloom'
She cut each leaf to scale so the veins would appear exactly as she wished. Reeds form the frame, and the clasp is a white northern bean.
Pat Schnack of Tantalus, chair of the flower show, created a brooch using a macadamia nut (in its shell) as the center, with sea-grape leaves for the petals. The gold prongs are the tips of china fir she collected at Volcano on the Big Island and Norfolk Island pine branches from the North Shore. She used gold nail polish to add glitz and glamour.
Anne Hagar of Manoa created her "Sweet Aloha" necklace with flowers from the sandpaper vine, burnished with a pink-mauve nail polish. Her red chain is made of coconut husk, and the flower centers are popcorn kernels. Her seed clasp is ali'i poe.
Nail-polish brushes are used because they are the right stiffness for painting the dried materials and don't shed in the process. They are also far less expensive (drug store 99-cent bottles) than sable brushes at art or craft stores.
Humidity proved a challenge for all the participants.
It's important to make sure the leaves are completely dry before putting on the first paint or polish, and they have to dry between each layer.
"You really have to be patient," Alston said.
Here's a recommended list of materials for making jewelry from dried flora:
- Krylon's 18-karat gold-leaf pen from Wal-Mart in Mililani.
- Tacky glue.
- Chrome nail polish by Revlon.
- Magnifying headgear to ensure quality results.
- Metallic paint powders in bronze, gold and copper.
- Mauve nail polish from Lancome.
- For the backing or "chains," try coconut husk, raffia, banana or ti leaves, and pine needles.
