Telfair Blossoms With Special Exhibit
Photos by Kalika Sarasin and Pablo Portilla del Valle
Written by Emilie Kefalas.
Floral delicacy mingled with splendid artwork this past weekend, April 14 – 17, at the Telfair Museum’s inaugural, “Telfair in Bloom.” Described as a festival of art and flowers, the event featured floral designs by over thirty local designers. The Telfair Museums’ Director of Development Molly Taylor said the festival was intended to invite the community to visit both the Jepson Center and the Telfair Academy and engage with the art and flowers displayed.
“The flowers are really the message for getting people to look more closely at the art,” Taylor said. “So basically, local designers are taking beautiful fresh flowers and interpreting some objects from Telfair’s collection. There are some paintings, some sculptures, some decorative art – there’s even a chair. The designers are opening up a whole new way of appreciating the museum and showing people that art is not just something in a frame or on a pedestal, but it can be something like flowers that are artistic and beautiful.”
Throughout the three-day festival, various themed parties and lectures were held to further immerse the community in the symbolism and interpretation of art’s floral elements. Taylor said “Telfair in Bloom” was a new, creative event that drew inspiration from multiple museums across the country.
“We have our wonderful Telfair Academy Guild – our ladies guild – who are very creative and like to change up the ways they help us make money,” Taylor explained. “And this is what they chose to do. We’re really excited about it because I think it will engage a broader public who may or may not come into the museum on another occasion. This will be a draw and then pull them in closer and to look at art and think about their relationship to art, and potentially become Telfair member and in general just feel more comfortable coming in. That’s our goal.”
The art on view alongside the floral displays was all from the Telfair’s own private collection, Taylor said. Local florists and designers responded to museum’s open call to arrange the flowers to complement the art.
“They had thirty people who offered to do it, and they each bring their own background and experience to the challenge,” Taylor said. “Some own flower shops, some are garden club enthusiasts, some are random people who love flowers and happen to be good at arranging them and wanted to participate. There’s a wide diversity of people and experiences, and I think that the interpretations will show that, which will be really fun.”
One of the interesting aspects of “Telfair in Bloom” is its contrast of flowers with artistic mediums, Taylor said.
“People are more familiar and comfortable with flowers,” Taylor said. “They see them around town. Savannah is a gorgeously flowered city in the spring. And so if an impermanent material is able to bring people into look at the pieces that are permanent and our part of our permanent collection, then that’s a fabulous marriage between two very different materials and objects. One is natural and will eventually die, and the permanent collection – which Telfair prides itself on conserving and maintaining in perpetuity – is here in Savannah to augment our beautiful city. It’s a wonderful marriage between these two things.”
The Telfair Museums made a conscious decision a year and a half ago to lower prices for students in an effort to increase student membership. The price is the same as a regular admission ticket, which includes access to all three Telfair sites. Taylor hopes SCAD students consider a Telfair membership if they do not already have one.
“Membership to Telfair is a fabulous way for any SCAD students to engage with special events like this and engage with the museum for the entire year,” Taylor said. “I think an art museum plays a really important role in a student’s life, and we are putting up a huge diversity of exhibition programming in order to satisfy different tastes and create intrigue and challenge people.”
Taylor said she feels SCAD students are so fortunate to have an education that encourages them to think outside of the box and create art set apart from the norm.
“Whether you’re a cinema studies student, or art history, or furniture design, or industrial design, or printmaking, or whatever, I think that looking at more art and engaging with art in a hugely varied and diverse way plays a role in shaping your own art, and how you see the world and, in turn, how you interpret the world through your art,” Taylor said.
