Inspired by artists Ronald “Bino” Greer II and Diane Willow’s garden as a space of refuge in the exhibition SEEN, this activity invites you to use your creativity to craft a unique flower garden that represents your personal memories, emotions, or connections. Gardens hold stories—of growth, healing, and transformation—and this activity serves as an invitation to reflect on the ways that nature can embody and honor our experiences.

Using colorful pipe cleaners as your medium, imagine a flower that might grow in a garden of healing, inspiration, or reflection. Each twist and curve of the pipe cleaners can symbolize a part of your journey, a memory, or an emotion.

Steps to Create Your Garden:

1. Reflect: Close your eyes and think of a moment or feeling that has shaped you. What colors, shapes, or patterns come to mind? Imagine this as a flower—its petals, its stem, its overall character.
    
2. Design: Begin shaping the pipe cleaners to create your flower. Mix and match colors to represent different emotions or memories. Consider how your flower might stand tall or spread out, representing strength, joy, or connection.
    
3. Compose Your Garden: Arrange your flower within a personal or shared "garden" space. Add more flowers to tell multiple stories or combine your creations with others to create a collective garden.

Seeking more flower inspiration? Explore the Weisman’s collection to discover how flowers have been depicted across different time periods and artistic mediums.

Supplies: pipecleaners of various colors and sizes; small terracotta flower pots. 

Drop-in, Self-Guided Art Activity

Each month, WAM presents a self-guided art-making activity inspired by an art piece or artist from the museum's collection. Everything you need to make your own masterpiece is provided and the activity is designed to be accessible and open to all. Drop-in during open hours and get creative! 

This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a Minnesota State Arts Board Operating Support grant, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund. Additional general operating support is generously provided by Ameriprise Financial and the Art and Martha Kaemmer Fund of HRK Foundation.

Image credit: (Top) Paul Mommer, Flowers, 1939. Oil on canvas, 30 1/4 × 20 1/4 in. Bequest of Hudson D. Walker from the Ione and Hudson D. Walker Collection, 1978.21.30, not on view. (Bottom) Mervin Jules, Flowers, 20th century. Color woodcut on rice paper dyed blue on one side, 19 × 13 in. Gift of the artist, 1967.27.9, not on view.