WE WOULD LIKE TO HEAR FROM YOU

Andrea Oliva Florendo is available for lectures and art workshops, contact her for details.

 

Lectures and Art Workshops:

Where Flowers Bloom: An Artist's Odyssey

(A Journey of the Heart To the Garden of Creativity)

"Follow your heart in the garden bowers

And tell your secrets to the flowers."

Andrea Oliva Florendo, visual artist and author uncovers the lore and inspiration of Mother Nature and the garden in a primer for anyone who wants to find or nourish their creative selves. Along with the role of florigraphy, rhythm exercises, creative visualization and the art of painting, this seminar will keep you on a journey to wholeness, and allows you to participate in realizing that ordinary power of creative spirituality which result from simply letting go and allowing it to happen. Eager to share her creativity to kindred spirits, she offers Art classes at Queensborough City University of New York, botanical gardens and at her studio where wildflowers, squirrels and the birds share the garden. For models, she only needs to borrow a bit of the earth- grass, herbs, twigs, rock, leaves and blossoms. Trips to horticultural societies and on-location painting at botanical gardens in New York and Long Island are highly recommended. "Let the garden be your teacher," invites Andrea describing her classes in watercolor. "Remember the flower or leaf that you hold on the palm of your hand already know what to do." The earthly colors and varied textures of flowers, grasses and ferns combine to make them exceptional studies. In a supportive setting and using the garden for materials and inspiration, students will explore patterns, shapes and colors to create works that celebrate this great communion.

 

 

A Mary Garden: Medieval and Renaissance Botanical Symbolism

A lily, a rose, a columbine, a violet, a pansy, an iris, a lily of the valley are pleasingly decorative to the casual observer. But for the Medieval and Renaissance artists , flowers were a part of a rich visual symbology. In this seminar, participants examine the emergence of this subject and explore plant representations in illuminated manuscripts , French and Flemish Book of Hours, devotional cards ,miniatures and paintings. Botanical symbolism on the basis of form, color and liturgical season of bloom provides a floral mosaic of Mary's life and mysteries. Knowing these botanical motifs and its connotations of virtues and attributes will aid the viewer in interpreting and understanding the artistic, cultural and scriptural content of a Marian painting.

Historical Perspective

  • Flower Imagery of Mary- (Scripture, Psalter, litanies and Canticum Cantorum (Song of Songs)
  • Botanical Symbolism
  • Medieval Flower Sermons and the Saints
  • Emblem Flowers · Garden of Virtues
  • Our Lady and Mary Flowers
  • Rosarium, Mary's Rose-ary Garden
  • Gifts From The Mary Garden- Tussie - mussies, posies, wreaths (hortus coronarius), Assumption Bundles.
  • Biblecraft ( Painting, collage, pressed flower art.)

Art & Harp Therapy

The Painted Harp:

A Note, A Brushstroke And A Flower Story

"Nature is never quiet before my eyes. There are the nestled circles of pink and crimson strokes that give the illusion of a rose. More circles… leaves trailing in a broad laugh and you have a garland. Add swoops of blue and lilac and a ribbon dances around it.

A mood, a feeling, a voice that evokes nature's true self is the essence of art. Sometimes, one can never be certain when an impression will bear fruit. Often, a painting takes root when we are not aware it is happening."

Artist's Journal

The soothing strains of harp and the improvisations of melodic arrangements in Dorian, Ionic, Aeolian and other medieval modality contribute to artistic and impressionistic flower painting. The seminar is about listening to the harp, and using your creativity in your own rhythm to create art. How do harp therapy and flower painting come together in creative healing? At the heart of the study of life's rhythm, is the realization that the flow of rhythm in a harp can also be found in nature, and in us. Rhythm is an element of design. In art "rhythm" refers to patterns. The musician who wishes to affect moods by rhythm is like the artist who uses lines and shapes to create an impression. The participants learn to open themselves to the beneficence of nature. The harp is introduced in the creative process because it encourages this same temperament within us--- to use our awe, our wonder, our imagination and creativity toward the betterment of our body, mind and soul.