Made Art Mondays, Featuring: The Art of Bloom Exhibit

Welcome to Made Art Mondays! This is a weekly blog post series that will post every Monday to highlight artistic experiences or people that inspire the intent of the Sun Shadow Collective.

The particular intent in this case, is that of Art and how life itself is an ongoing art project and personal experience. However each of us see and organize our own worlds, is often that of artistic intent – whether we want to admit it or not. The saying is true – Earth without Art is just Eh. There is no Earth without Art, thus there is no human that exists that couldn’t be considered an Artist. While the term “Artist” may come with a stigma for some, the reality of life falls under nature’s paintbrush and nature and the earth itself are affected by the universe around it, along with those who inhabit it.

The Sun Shadow Collective can be considered an Art project. Art is the collection of the artist’s knowledge and dreams, and is very much inspired by other artists – and that experience is just as real as life itself.

The Art of Bloom

The featured image on this post is of me, taken by my cousin (Casey), at a pop-up art exhibit we visited last weekend in Long Beach. The theme of the exhibit is Symbiosis – how humans and flowers are affected by the other, stimulating growth or representing the fragility of life.
When entering the exhibit, we walked into a large, empty, low-lit room with with a flower ceiling, prismatic lights dancing through falling petals and our shadows following us as our senses branched out to take it all in. We scooped up piles of white faux petals and thrust them into the air to intensify the experience, making for some fun photography! I had us each put on my rose colored glasses gain a whole new perspective. It worked.

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I had so much fun playing around with the edits on these photos, which is often triggered by whatever the photo consists of (light, shadow, etc). This time I was dealing with pretty dark photos, so as I lightened I got a grainy effect on some and also a more saturated effect (throwing it back to the old days of super saturated photos!). I’m still careful to not go too overboard on this, though, but I love playing up the trippy effects when I get a chance. Truly a Pisces looking through her rose colored glasses… 🙂 It was tough to convert most of these to black and white, but the featured image nailed it. There is something about the way the petals float in the air – and photography helps freeze them in time and space.

The Art of Bloom exhibit also had a small AR exhibit exploring the human to nature to technology connections. Using the Art of Bloom app on our phones, the camera allowed us to see a separate world that we couldn’t see in real life.

As we left the exhibit, it almost felt like we had left a spa (without the massage or facial!). It was a sensory experience in every sense of the word, and worth the visit. It is these experiences that make life so worth living – to see other perspectives, support others and embrace the journey – the good and the bad.

What art exhibits have you gone to recently or want to go to? Would you go to to The Art of Bloom exhibit if it was in your area?

Happy Blooming – Have a good week!