On Wednesday, November 11, I attended the Poisonous Plants exhibit currently hanging in the Rose Dining Room. The event was much classier than I had expected, with a smattering of cheese, crackers and fruit, along with wine for the adults attending.

The exhibit itself was very interesting to look closely at. Each piece was inspired by a poisonous plant, but the term inspired should come loosely. Art is a very subjective science and each piece was visually wonderful, but I could not always tell what plant they were based on. A placard hanging below would have greatly helped the exhibit, in my opinion.

Overall, the pieces were interesting to observe and the event was well attended, with the mingling after the exhibit causal and comfortable. I am very glad I attended!

Below are a few of my favorite pieces from the exhibit.

The Poisonous Plants exhibit is an art exhibit that currently rests in The Flora Rose Dining Hall. It’s a newly added collection of pieces which are centered around the idea of various poisonous plants. These prints were created in the class Introduction to Print Media taught by Professor Page. The students of the class worked with Professor Todd Bittner, Director of Natural Areas of the Cornell Plantations, and Diane Miske, Gardener and Visitor Services Coordinator at the Cornell Plantations. Professor Page likes to take the learning in his class, and really apply it to a different medium or outlet, hence all the prints being centered around these plants.

The plants are definitely the highlight of every piece but they draw on so much more than just that. Some showcase human emotions through the plants while others try to mix human perceptions and feelings with the anatomy of the plants. Overall it brings upon quite a stunning intertwine between the mediums and leaves the viewer to think and observe more than what’s presented at the surface. Some of the pictures attached are pieces of work from the gallery. I highly recommend for that people visit Flora Rose Dining to get a view of these pieces of art.

On Wednesday before house dinner I attended the poisonous plant reception. I was expecting to see real poisonous plants, but looking back, it wouldn’t make much sense to have poisonous plants in a dining hall. Instead, there was a series of art works including lithography, screen prints, relief prints, mono prints, and stenciling. The works were created by the students in the Intro to Print Media class. The professors of the course worked with Professor Todd Bittner and went to the plantations to see some poisonous plants. After learning about the different types, their effects and uses, and how to identify them, they created the art works that are now featured in the dining hall.

My favorite piece was titled “Herbaceous Curiousness”. Herbaceous means relating to herbs. The piece featured a large beautiful cabinet filled with different kinds of plants in jars and pots with the names of three different poisonous plants. Since I didn’t get to learn much about the actual plants at the reception, I read about one of the plants online, the solanum ptycanthum or eastern black nightshade. The foliage and unriped berries of the plant are toxic and very dangerous to birds, mammals, and curious children.

Gregory Page, Professor for Cornell’s Introduction to Print Media class, decided to take a unique route in his curriculum last year, challenging his students to think creatively while incorporating natural elements into a form of print media. Their assignment was to take inspiration from a recent trip to Cornell plantations and display their characteristics and qualities into art. These students took creative liberty in delivering their own views and interpretations on the beautiful vegetation that they had encountered, while accenting their more devious element of poison.

The exhibit itself only displayed a few of the pieces created but even still, it truly helped to instill in me a greater appreciation for print media. With various methods of overlaying photographic or sketched/hand-drawn mediums, the images and prints created a deeper meaning into the innocent facade of such plants. For example,  Mandragora depicts what I assume to be a Mandrake plant overlaid on top of several faces. This piece alludes to the hallucinogenic effects of Mandrake poisoning and its use as a narcotic.Tachychardia, on the other hand has a less obvious interpretation. The first impression is of a woman napping on top of a plant, leading to the viewer to assume the narcoleptic properties of this plant. However, the title, whose definition indicates a rapid heart beat, seems contradictory to the events of the print. Rather than displaying a nerve-wracked individual often associated with increased heart rate, the piece shows a peaceful woman asleep. On a side note, the piece Levitate incorporated a chemical molecule which really peaked my nerdy organic chemistry interest. The pieces had their own unique characteristics to display the varying viewpoints of the students towards these rare, poisonous plants and I applaud the creative success they had in portraying their perspectives.

This Wednesday, I went to a reception for the new art display in Rose Dining Room featuring prints inspired by poisonous plants. I thought this was a very unique theme for an art exhibition, so I was interested in seeing how the artists interpreted it in their works.

The prints were made by students in an Introduction to Print Media class last year, and the plants that they depicted are all specimens from the Cornell Plantations. The students learned about these plants through a guided tour given by the director of the Cornell Plantations, Todd Bittner. Prof. Bittner explained at the reception that he only taught students about the different types and attributes of the plants, and then let them decide on their own how to depict the plants in their art.

I was fascinated by the range of different approaches that the students used to portray the plants. Some pieces like Infected emphasized the plants’ dangerous properties, by showing the face of a man discolored by contact with a poisonous plant. On the other hand, some of the prints like Wallpaper, depicting a bouquet of flowers on a yellow background, highlighted the plants’ beauty rather than their danger.

Recently I attended the art exhibit in Rose Dining Hall, showing print media by Professor Page and Teaching Assistant Lia Sutton’s students. The book Wicked Plants by author Amy Stewart inspired this semester’s project.

The class visited the Robison York State Herb Garden in the Cornell Plantations and was introduced to all the poisonous plants in that garden. This portfolio is a exploratory investigation of this subject, with artist translations in visual terms representing the plants in various situations and scenarios based on the tours that the students engaged in. The works of the portfolio contains prints of various mediums including lithography, screen prints, relief prints, mono prints, and stenciling.

There is a saying that many have subscribed to for generations, and have accepted it as fact. That saying is the familiar pearl, ‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.’ We understand, through this widely used statement, that the concept of beauty is such a relative one that its defined terms change with whomever is actively doing the perceiving. What holds beauty to one, may not to another. It is a simple enough idea, and apparently resonates truthfully within so many of us for it to have grown to become such a popularly uttered phrasing among the masses. So if a concept such as beauty, can be that subjective, can the same be said for a medium of largely interpretative and conceptual products? I am speaking, in this case, of art.

Art is more than the perception of beauty, and the intention of the creator, it is about interpretation. Without the interpretation that each person is moved to uncover about a piece of art, it becomes a stagnant work. It was extremely interesting for me to discuss with fellow attenders of this event about their interpretations of the pieces.

Art is a beautiful part of the world we live in, whether we read about it, create it ourselves or simply appreciate it. And don’t be fooled into thinking art is something you’d only find in a gallery or exhibition; it’s everywhere, shown in the students ability to capture poisonous plants.