I love when friends send me pictures of flowers, so I’m hoping to bring that feeling to your inbox with this letter of tulips.
I love tulips year-round but I found I was really craving them this past winter, especially red ones. Martha Stewart famously doesn’t grow red flowers in her gardens (except poppies), but she does like to grow red tulips in her “cutting garden” to have for arrangements. Now it’s almost time for tulips to come out, the small red ones first. May Sarton notes this in a much loved passage in Journal of a Solitude that I like to revisit every spring, which I’ve included below. In Plant Dreaming Deep, Sarton also writes about flowers being silent presences, nourishing every sense except the ear - except the “creaking” of tulips, so even hearing may, in fact, be involved. I have a screenshot saved from one of Co-Star Astrology’s posts where they assign all of the signs an alarm clock sound and for Libra (me) it’s 'a tulip blossoming’. I love Claire Milbrath’s paintings of tulips - and this post where she shares the reading material that helped support her practice. I would love to visit Skagit Valley for their tulip festival - until then, there is a house in Northern Toronto that plants the entire square footage of their yard with tulips so that will do for my tulip festival this spring ;)
Below is some of my tulip collection:
I took the above photo on Valentine’s Day in 2018 - it was a very sunny morning, cold, but warm enough in February for the row of flower shops I like to visit to have their tulips out.
Earlier this year Le Cinema Club was streaming The Colours, a children’s film (one that’s also excellent for adults!) by Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami as part of their Le Petit Cinema Club series. I try to watch whatever is streaming each week on Le Cinema Club as sort of a Saturday morning cartoon and this one was obviously pure joy, both rhythmically and aesthetically. I then watched this interview and learned Kiarostami got the idea for the pacing of the film from observing his own children watching television while they were eating. He noticed that they always looked up when a commercial came on and paid very close attention, which he thought had to do with the rhythm. Kiarostami’s childhood films are available on Criterion.
The absolute chicest anyone has ever looked carrying and and arranging red tulips is Juliette Binoche in Damage, directed by Louis Malle. I love the wardrobe in this film (by genius Milena Canonero).
My friend Hannah and I saw this fake tulip arrangement in Manhattan and from afar we thought it was real. A perfect example of when Mary Ruefle writes about not liking artificial flowers; but when they look real she falls in love with them.
This is one of my favourite paintings by Jane Corrigan, of two girls carrying a basket of oranges and a bouquet of tulips on a spring day, entitled Wet + Warm. When I texted Jane to ask if she would mind if I included this image she commented on how nice it was to see it back in her studio setting, propped on two of her favourite books, Manet and Daumier.
I first met Jane when she was living in Toronto, working on a show at ESP Gallery. I hadn’t seen her work yet, but when I arrived to the opening she commented on how I was dressed like her paintings. I felt an instant connection with her and always treasure the time I get to spend with her (especially when it involves visiting the Met and eating rainbow sprinkle eclairs after). I asked Jane if there was anything anecdotal I should include about this painting and this is what she said:
At that time a few years ago I was obsessed with oranges in paintings, in part just the colour - it’s a mix of red and yellow, two primaries making this glorious secondary. It’s the ideal warm tone in a painting, not too dark and moody like red, not bright and blinding like yellow, it’s nudged in between and it just sits so perfectly. And I was also looking at and riffing on Baselitz’s orange eaters series […] So I think I built the painting around the oranges. I was also thinking of atmospheric weather type feelings and wanting to paint spring air.
And here is the promised spring paragraph from Journal of a Solitude. I’m looking forward to stained-glass trees.
In the spring of 2017 I went to London by myself to see David Hockney’s exhibit at the Tate. My father had passed away suddenly the previous fall and the grief counsellor I was seeing recommended I take a trip. I wasn’t sure where to go but when I saw this exhibition was happening I booked a flight and arrived for the first day of spring. When I was waiting in line to check my coat, a woman in front of me asked if I had come a long way to see the Hockney exhibit. I said I had, and that I was excited. She said I looked it, and for some reason that moment moved me, that I looked as happy as I felt, and that a stranger witnessed it. Anyway, I love how Hockney paints tulips and that exhibition, with its pink walls and tulip filled vases, is a special memory.
Here are some exquisite tulips also from that 2017 trip to London, at Claire de Rouen Books. Something I loved so much at that shop was that the Fitzcarraldo Editions were all wrapped in pearly cellophane.
Thank you for reading and Happy Spring <3
Tulips in Cellophane Postscript
This was such a balm for my racing mind ❤️
Dearest May, she's one of my favorites. And now I'm considering the color orange as a new favorite due to your friend Jane's beautiful painting. Lovely post, Katie. As always xx