Indianapolis Museum of Art Blog

Some tigers are saber-toothed and stuffed; others are rendered in chrome. Two museums brought me closer to wildness this summer: the Indiana State Museum’s Footprints exhibition and the new Harley-Davidson Museum in Milwaukee, WI.

At the ISM, Footprints features taxidermy to die for. In an exploration of the natural history of what is today Indiana, stuffed ice age sabertooths cavort with stuffed otters, owls, fish and badgers, arranged in an unintentionally surreal tableau. This is installation art if I’ve ever seen it: a barrage of lives that were, juxtaposed for maximum emotional impact. Later in the show, there are piercing black-and-white photos of Indiana’s hunting history. The eyes of the hunters and their giddy hounds smolder with pride in front a wall of raccoon skins, circa 1935. Footprints has a high haunt factor.

The Harley-Davidson Museum, on the other hand, is pure exaltation. This cathedral to industrial design and American capitalism opened just this month after a multi-year planning process. Read the rest of this entry »

As many people already know, I am not a card carrying member of the We Should Only Plant Natives Club. They are fine and all that but I feel no great need to adhere to such a restrictive policy. I do incorporate natives in my designs. We’ve used many natives and their cultivars in multiple areas in the gardens created after our expansion. Carex radiata can be found in the Overlook garden behind Deer Zink (along with Amelanchier), multiple cultivars of redbud are in the Garden for Everyone (along with the straight species – I guess the others would be the gay, lesbian, bi, and transgendered species?), and Echinacea is everywhere (along with Amsonia hubrictii – Arkansas bluestar).

There most certainly is a place for natives. I did a design recently for a neighborhood park and included them in it. They definitely cross my mind when I know there will be extreme cultivation issues such as sunny and dry, shady and dry, wet and anything, or most importantly, minimal maintenance after establishment. Of course if there is a non-native available that is just as tough and prettier I have no problem going with it. Pretty always wins. Remember high school? I attempt to follow the “right plant, right place” mantra ignoring the individual plant’s origin. I want plants from everywhere and damn near every plant no matter where it’s from. As Divine said in Pink Flamingos “Get it all cracker. Get it all”.

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As a new segment this summer, the IMA Blog will be featuring a Tuesday Photo of the Week, highlighting juicy tidbits of info including works of art, artists, news, events, or locations.

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