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Page 4E Sunday, December 13, 2015 The Anniston Star LIFE & ARTS3D

THE SOUTHERN GARDENER

BY SHERRY BLANTONSpecial to The Star

Years ago, my husband and I were very fortunate to be able to travel to London and regions close by. Other than the beau-tiful architecture and the mixture of peo-ple (and the man walking down the street with an electric blue parrot on his shoul-der), one of my sweetest memories was the abundance of beautiful flowers.

Small stands on most every street cor-ner were filled to capacity with charming bouquets. It seemed every house we passed had a window box flowing over with something eye-catching.

A trip to the countryside was a visible feast. Beautifully manicured streets were lined with dear gardens. It became obvi-ous that the British were fantastic and cre-ative gardeners.

More than once I stood spellbound, camera in hand, trying to capture the scene, never having seen such lush green lawns and gorgeous flower beds. The out-side of one corner pub was almost com-pletely covered in flowers.

Since I am such a plant nerd, we tried to visit as many gardens as possible. One very cold morning, we took the train to Kew Gardens. We got off the train in a charming little town adjacent to the gardens.

Just a few steps from the station was a small garden shop, The Kew Gardener. On this early morning, we met the proprietor busily tending his merchandise. The large windows revealed racks of heucheras, ivy, hostas and other plants to capture a gar-deners eye (and heart).

I thought I might have died and gone to some kind of very special gardeners heaven.

I went in to look carefully at the plants and share a friendly hello with the shop-keeper. (Gardeners know that, regardless of our accents, we are all friends.)

What really stole my heart were the brilliantly hued small flowers lining the

sidewalk outside the store. I stooped over to look; they were cyclamens somehow, a flower I did not know.

Was this a common flower, one easy to locate by the casual gardener or one only found by careful searching?

I needed no further introduction. I knew at that minute I had found the true symbol of Englands horticultural beauty: a small plant topped with vivid blooms above vibrant, heart-shaped foliage. How perfect to have taken one home, but it was not a possibility.

Over the years, I did not spend lots of time pining for my British flower. Then a small miracle happened. Three weeks ago, I went into Lowes and there were hun-dreds of cyclamens in the most incredible shades of pink, red, white and fuschia.

I broke into one of my biggest smiles; a little piece of my British memories was about to be mine.

I loaded up my buggy, stopping within arms length of other shoppers to exclaim over their beauty. I thought perhaps I ought to buy an extra one or two to gift friends who might share my admiration of this little beauty.

I could hardly wait to get home to find the perfect spot to bring a little bit of England into my kitchen.

Two weeks ago, I stopped in again, only to find yet another shipment of cyclamens. A red one with ruffled blossoms, a magen-ta specimen edged in white, and one in a pale shade of peach left with me.

A few days ago, as I passed Lowes, I decided to take the scene in one more time. This time I left with two delicious flowers, one with white flowers and the other with brilliant red ones.

As I stood in front of the shelves, I could almost see the big window in the English garden shop and the sidewalks lined with dainty bloomers.

Caring for cyclamensThere are many kinds of cyclamens,

some meant to be in the garden, others whose lives are better spent in the house.

The selections carried at Lowes are Cyclamen persicum. Some of the smaller pots were trademarked as Laser Cyclamen while the larger pots were marked as only C. persicum.

According to the label, their cold hardi-ness rating is 40 degrees; thus, they would be safer as a houseplant.

According to The Southern Living Gar-dening Book, they are classified as florist cyclamens. The book mentions that some cyclamens have been bred to have larger flowers and, consequently, some of those selections have lost their fragrance due to breeding practices.

For those energetic gardeners who want to save their plants from one year to the next, Southern Living suggests discontinuing watering at the end of the blooming season (fall). Allow plants to go dormant in the summer, then repot and

start watering again and place the plant in bright light.

Southern Living also suggests to make sure top half of the tuber is above soil surface. My sister, who is a natural-born gardener, told me she left her plant in the same spot all year and did nothing special to it, only to find it in bloom this month.

Jerry Miller, who tends the garden center at Lowes, tells me they are tougher than they look and he has actually brushed snow off of his cyclamens, an action I probably will not recommend.

This year, may I suggest that, instead of reaching for the traditional poinsettia, bring a little bit of London into your house and add a cyclamen or two to your decora-tions. Soon you will be a fan just like I am.

Sherry Blanton is a member of the Calhoun County Master Gardeners Associ-ation. Contact her at sblanton@anniston-star.com.

Cyclamens bring cheer and color for the holidays

BY MARY ELOISE H. LEAKESpecial to The Star

A thread will be hanging from my skirt and absent-mindedly Ill pull it. Suddenly the hem unravels. Thats what happened to me with Georgia OKeeffe, the American artist known for her big, bright flower paintings and red poppy postage stamp.

In the 1960s, I attended Columbia College, a small Methodist womens school in South Carolina. Neither my classmates nor I knew that OKeeffe once taught art there and had an epiphany while she was on the faculty.

How did I discover this? The Annis-ton Star! In 1997, as the Small Talk columnist, I interviewed Anita Jenkins about a jaunt that she and her hus-band, Julian, made to Santa Fe, N.M. Anita spun a fascinating tale about their visit to OKeeffes newly opened art museum and their pilgrimage to the reclusive artists adobe home in nearby Abiquiu. I was hooked.

The next year, while reading a book about the artist, I screamed, OKeeffe taught at my alma mater! The quest was on.

I began digging into OKeeffes arrival at Columbia College on Sept. 22, 1915. Among other things, I unearthed interesting insights from Jerold J. Savorys interviews in the 1970s with J. Milton Ariail for a book about the college. Ariail, my mothers beloved English professor, and his family had been OKeeffes next-door neighbors.

To help compensate for low sal-aries, some professors and their families lived on campus in a huge three-story building known as Old Main. Savory said Ariail recalled the 27-year-old artist as a tall, thin woman with a prickly personality who did all kinds of crazy things with that old violin late at night. Seeing her art, he labeled it crazy, too. But they got

along well.I faxed Savorys information to

Barbara Buhler Lynes, the founding curator of the OKeeffe Museum. She was working on the artists catalogue raisonne, a two-volume record of her works. Pleased to get fresh material from OKeeffes Southern sojourn, she and I emailed for several years.

Its clear that when she was at Columbia College, she decided to chart a new path. The charcoal drawings she did then and into the spring of 1916 and through the late 10s are quite dramatic, Lynes said. She considers the period as one of the most productive of her life.

Since OKeeffe had moved to South Carolina from New York, she found Columbia dull. But with a light class schedule, she had time to think. In the delightful climate, she frequently walked miles in the semi-rural envi-ronment. A self-avowed nature buff, she reveled in this freedom.

In a letter to Savory on July 13, 1979, OKeeffe wrote: I had a room next to the Ariails. In that room I had an exhibition of the work I had done with various teachers I realized with each picture I was trying to work as each teacher had taught me and wanted me to. it occurred to me that I had ideas of my own that I had never put down before as I had never seen things like them. It was an important time in my life. Some of my most important early drawings were made at that time at Columbia College. It started me on my way.

Resolutely, OKeeffe turned her back on her canvases, brushes and paints. Lying on the floor, she began to draw those curious images, using only charcoal and sketch paper. And the metamorphosis began.

In 1999, I wrote an article about OKeeffes Columbia breakthrough for The (S.C.) State newspaper, and my husband and I were then invited

to Washington, D.C., for the Phillips Collections opening of the OKeeffe exhibit, the poetry of things.

My eureka moment? In the exhibit entrance were two of the powerful abstract charcoal Specials that were drawn at Columbia College.

Our James Bond moment came later at the National Gallery of Art. As we were being led through the gal-leries, the guide put her hand up on a wall and it opened. We walked into the modern prints and drawings area, and the wall closed behind us.

First, I was given the privilege of holding some of OKeeffes early char-coal Specials. The dynamic drawings were radical departures from the artistic norm. Next, I handled some of Alfred Stieglitzs iconic photographs of OKeeffe. Definitely goosebump moments.

In the spring of 1916, OKeeffe abruptly left Columbia. A friend had shown some of her early Specials to Stieglitz, whose New York gallery was the first in the U. S. to feature Rodin, Matisse, Cezanne and Picasso.

After a scandalous affair, OKeef-fe and Stieglitz married. She began incorporating some of his photo-graphic techniques into her paintings, creating large close-up flowers, bones and other organic objects that often were dramatically cropped. His PR garnered huge prices for her paintings.

Late last year almost 29 years after her death in 1986 OKeeffes iconic Jimson Weed/White Flow-er No. 1 sold for $44.4 million to Walmart heiress Alice Walton a new record for a female artist.

Now, OKeeffes early charcoals and watercolors are being rediscovered, burnishing her fame as an American modernist.

I think that would please her.

Mary Eloise H. Leake is a freelance writer living in Anniston.

GEORGIA AND ME100 years ago, Georgia OKeeffe came to teach at my alma mater, and the South changed her art forever GEORGIA OKEEFFE

AND THE SOUTH

Continuing through April, Columbia, S.C., and Columbia College are celebrating the centennial of Georgia OKeeffes time as an art instructor there.

Through Jan. 10, the Columbia Museum of Art is showcasing Georgia OKeeffe Her Carolina Story, the first art exhibition to focus on this era in her life. The exhibit contains 14 works, loaned by her Santa Fe museum, the National Gallery of Art, Atlantas High Muse-um and the Greenville Museum of Art. Some of the Specials drawn at Columbia College are on view, as is OKeeffes Red Canna, which hung for a time at the college but is now owned by the High. For more information, visit www.columbiamuseum.org.

The college dedicated the Georgia OKeeffe Tribute Garden at its entrance in October.

Sanctuary and Spirit Images of OKeeffe by Todd Webb is on view at the colleges Goodall Gallery through Dec. 27. A student of Ansel Adams, Webb and OKeeffe shared a 30-year friendship. Although these black-and-white photos are of an older OKeeffe, he captures her eccentric personali-ty, independence and humor.

Nature Reimagined is a small hands-on exhibit in the Goodall. The clay sculptures rep-resent OKeeffes works in clay after macular degeneration clouded her sight.

SCETVs A Woman on Paper is an intriguing new 30-minute documentary about the impact of the college and the South on OKeeffe. PBS stations will show it in 2016.

For a full event listing, visit www.ideasofmyown.com.

Sherry Blanton/Special to The Star

The garden center at Lowes is filled with cyclamens this holiday season.

Georgia OKeeffe Museum

Blue Line, 1919

Georgia OKeeffe Museum

Georgia OKeeffe, 1918. Photo by Alfred Stieglitz

National Gallery of Art, Washington

No. 20 From Music-Special, 1915