“Juan Ponce de Leon is referenced in the collection as an archetype and is treated more as a concept than an individual, and certainly not celebrated as a hero. I think that he represents that part of our psyche that we hope we can overcome: the individual as possessor. I want to show an alternative path through which we can learn to live as an active participant within the natural order. So another way to look at this project would be Ponce vs. the Butterfly.” -Jim Draper, 2012
Jim Draper’s Feast of Flowers is a multi-disciplinary project that critically investigates new ways of understanding Florida’s history, environmental aesthetics and the human place within the natural order. It is comprised of a collection of original paintings along with a digital anthology of collected works that seek to explain Florida’s enigmatic environmental and social landscape.
Essential in offering a unique perspective to the 500th anniversary of the naming of Florida, this curated document features responses from voices of various disciplines and serves as a cultural critique of our state, while Draper’s paintings explain a personal relationship with the unique Floridan ecosystem.
Features works by:
Jon Bosworth
Bob Self
Bill Belleville
David Montgomery
Daniel Newman
Jake Ingram
Dr. Hans-Herbert Kögler
Jeremiah Johnson
Jeremy Chandler
Cari Sanchez-Potter
Katrina Zoe Norbom
Eric Hawes
Margaret Ross Tolbert
Dr. Quinton White
Staci Bu Shea
Lily Kuonen
Neil Armingeon
Karen Ahlers
Holly Keris
Dr. Debra Murphy
Published by Jim Draper
Directed by Staci Bu Shea
Designed by Summer Wood
Copyedited by Robin Rütenberg
Adobe PDF
ISBN: 978-0-9887164-0-7
Best viewed with Adobe Acrobat Reader (https://get2.adobe.com/reader/)
Feast of Flowers Digital Publication
Catalogue (print):
“The Feast of Flowers should thus be considered an example of an art that transcends its own categorization as art by being engaged in opening up a new experiential access to the object domain it is representing, rather than by being acknowledged as an important representation itself.”
- Dr. Hans-Herbert Kögler, 2012
Jim Draper
The Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens
December 18, 2012-April 7, 2013
Texts by Holly Keris, Dr. Debra Murphy, and Dr. Hans-Herbert Kögler.
Published by Jim Draper
Directed by Staci Bu Shea
Designed by Summer Wood
Copy Edited by Robin Rütenberg
Photography by Doug Eng
ISBN 978-0-9887164-1-4
Feast of Flowers: Selected Text and Catalogue
Events:
Feast of Flowers, Conversations, as part of in-studio programming for the forthcoming exhibition at the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens (2013), intends to create an environment which allows social existence and artistic thinking to come together. It serves to break down the hierarchy between artist and non-artist (as well as teacher and student) so that we can all engage, instigate, and provoke thought on ideas that we already find familiar or within our reach.
I - August 22, 2012 - Exploring Community Aesthetics. Reading: Learning from Aesthetics: Old Masters and New Lessons, Grant Kester
II - September 19, 2012 - Drinking from the Eternal Spring. Reading: Business in a Bottle from Mirage: Florida and the Vanishing Water of the U.S., Cynthia Barnett
III - October 17, 2012 - Diet of Worms, Denouement. Reading: Instructions for Building a Vermicompost
IV - November 14, 2012 - Picture = 1K Words. Reading: A Facebook Post and responses
#feastofflowers #conversations