'Cracking Art' at Cheekwood

A visit to Cheekwood's Cracking Art exhibit has been on my schedule for some time. Cracking Art is an art and nature exhibit by a Milan-based artist collective. The large scale art installation features animals in striking colors displayed throughout the gardens. The installations are synthetic and made from 100% recycled plastic materials.

The Robert Ellis Color Garden featured a stunning display of Caterpillars in bright colors with each  surrounded by a bed of flowers and plants.

Surrounding the blue Caterpillar were gorgeous Agaves. They were stunning. What a terrific way to accent the Cracking Art.

The giant pink Caterpillar has to be one of my favorite in the exhibit.

On my walk to the Willis Perennial Garden, I looked back at the Robert Ellis Color Garden. If I didn't know any better, I would have sworn the gardens were being taken over by giant Caterpillars.

The canopy off the Robert Ellis Color Garden was filled with Summer plants in pinks and maroons and purples. But what I really loved was the Cracking Art Birds dangling from the canopy in bright colors.

Lions and tigers and bears! No, just Bears were featured in the Japanese Garden. I loved the huge red Bears that dotted the landscape.

Large green Wolves greeted me near the Carell Dogwood Garden. It was as though they were standing at attention next to tall green shrubs. While I didn't get to see all of the Crackin Art exhibit, as the weather was very, very hot, I hope to get back to Cheekwood before the end of the exhibit to see the rest of the animals. What I did see was incredible.

This particular Cracking Art exhibit was curated by Stefano Papetti Elisa Mori and Giorgia Berardinelli. There are six artists that originally founded the Cracking Art movement in 1993 in Italy, with the sole purpose of changing the history of contemporary art. The term 'cracking' comes from the process used to create the materials that form the synthetic installations that make up the animals in the exhibit. You can read more about Cracking Art here, Cracking Art.

Have a wonderful evening everyone. ENJOY!

Linking to The Scoop

Waterlily Garden at Gibbs, Kentucky Woman Series

As promised here is the next installment in my Kentucky Woman Series. Wondering just what the Kentucky Woman Series means.

Having lived in Tennessee for three years, I decided to pay homage to my home state of Kentucky.

So I am bringing you a series of posts featuring a particular subject in various images from this Kentucky woman.

Today's post hails from beautiful Gibbs Gardens which is situated about an hour northeast of Atlanta in northern Georgia. 

I have to say, this botanical garden is one of the most beautiful gardens I have ever visited.

I traveled to Gibbs Gardens on a hot Summer's day in mid August. The temperatures hovered in the middle 80's, however, the humidity was low on this particular day. Did I mention I watched and waited for a sunny, but less humid span of a couple of days to make the drive to Georgia to view the gardens.

It was as good a day as I was going to get for mid August in northern Georgia, but it turned out to be a nice day. I captured several of these images in midday when I visited the Waterlily Garden the first time. .

Then after visiting other areas of Gibbs, I walked back over to the Waterlily Garden a second time, before I left for the day. So without further fanfare, here are some of the purple Waterlily images I captured on that visit

I would like to say I could identify the exact names for all of these beautiful flowering Waterlilies, but sadly I come up short in that department. I hope you will forgive me.

At one point during my photo session, a Dragonfly decided to fly in for a brief sit down so I captured a few images of him taking a breather. I absolutely love Dragonflies.

These images feature the blue and purple hues in bloom on this bright sunny day at Gibbs. These particular hues are my favorite ones I love to photograph when I'm capturing images of Waterlilies.

For good measure, I thought I would throw in a close up of this purple Waterlily bloom. Gads, what gorgeous flowers. It's hard to imagine all of these images are different Waterlilies, but they are.

There are many gardens at Gibbs to say the least. However, the Waterlily Garden, where I captured these images, turned out to be my favorite. My second favorite was the Japanese Garden. I wished I could describe how gorgeous the Japanese Garden was. Perhaps, another Kentucky Woman Series post is in order to show you some of the beautiful greenery from my visit to that garden. The Weeping Willows with their hanging branches, coupled with the Japanese sculpture featured throughout that garden, was stunning.

I have fallen in love with botanical gardens. Soon, I hope to visit Cheekwood. I would have made the drive over to Nashville by now, but bronchitis had other plans. But, I am back in fighting form again so I hope to pay a visit there soon. I hope you enjoy these images. I loved capturing them. ENJOY!