COLLEGE STATION – For landscape artist Loela Barry, months spent sketching 46 heirloom bulbs for a book made them real for her.
“I called them my ladies, because as I drew them, they all developed a personality,” Barry said. “Some were sweet. Some were moody. Some were cute.
“But my ladies could not stay on paper,” she said. “And so they started to dance onto silk.”
The 46 original bulb illustrations along with some of the silk fashion creations are on display through June 29 at the Benz School of Floral Design in the Horticulture Sciences building at Texas A&M University. Admission to the exhibit is free.
Loela Barry of The Woodlands talks about creating wearable art after finishing a series of drawings of heirloom bulbs. (Texas AgriLife Communications photo by Kathleen Phillips)
Barry operates from a studio in The Woodlands with husband Johan Kritzinger, who is a chemical engineer and artist. The two, who call their business JoLoè Art, developed a process of taking the original art through a six-step process to transfer it into a unique way onto silk fabric.
“Each article becomes a piece of art,” she said. “So when you wear it, you are a piece of art. And we all are, if you look at it that way.”
She said the two are fond of using science to create art, and that has resulted in a chemical art process that yields vibrant abstracts on canvas. She said these one-of-a-kind pieces also are used to create the fashion pieces.
“You would think it is the opposite – the botanicals and the chemicals,” Barry said, “but it all goes back to science.”
She explained that the science of biology in horticulture and the science of chemicals merge in their art.
Barry’s original heirloom bulb illustrations, which all were framed with wood from fallen trees after Hurricane Ike, are found in the book “Heirloom Bulbs for Today” by Chris Wiesinger and Cherie Colburn.
For more information, contact the Benz School of Floral Design at 979-845-1699, or view the artists’ site at www.joloe-art.com.
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