Palm Beach Social Diary: Garden Gold at Palm Beach
April 30, 2019
Mary Pressly, pictured above arriving at the Preview Party, was awarded Best in Show for Botanical Arts and several creative awards, as well as designed the centerpiece, for the Garden Club of Palm Beach's biennial GCA Flower Show. The Preview Party attracted more than 200 supporters, including members from 16 garden clubs located throughout the Southland and Florida who participated in this year's competition.
The Garden Club of Palm Beach and the Ann Norton Sculpture Gardensare two area organizations sharing the spotlight focused on increasing appreciation for the area’s natural settings and landscapes. The Garden Club’s biennial GCA Flower Show is customarily a showstopper, attracting thousands during its two-day event at The Society of the Four Arts’ Esther B. O’Keeffe Gallery. This year GCPB hosted their organizational zone’s other clubs, making for a more diverse spirited exhibition. When sculptor Ann Weaver Norton left New York in the early 1940s to teach art at the Norton Art Gallery, she could not have imagined that almost 80 years later she would be inducted into the Florida Hall of Fame or that her studio and home would become part of the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Historic Artist’s Home program. Congratulations to the Ann Norton!
April 23, 2019 Preview Party – 6:30 pm Garden Club of Palm Beach presents Gold Leaf A GCA Flower Show
The Society of the Four Arts – Palm Beach
Before the party, here is a glance at those who went home with ribbons, certificates and trophies.
The following works received recognition. Best in Show: Floral Design: Mary Moretz, Sand Hills Garden Club; Horticulture: Kit Pannill, GCPB; Photography – Marilyn Beuttenmuller, GCPB; Botanical Arts Mary Pressly, GCPB. In the Floral Design division: The Dorothy Vietor Munger Award: Ginny Parker, GCPB; The Harriett DeWaele Puckett Creativity Award: Mary Pressly, GCPB; The Sandra Baylor Novice Floral Design Award: Nancy Madden, GCPB. Miriam Rosengarten Memorial Trophy: Linda Beaty. Garden Club of Palm Beach. For Horticulture: The Catherine Beattie Medal: Vickie Denton, GCPB; The Clarissa Willemsen Horticulture Propagation Award: Holly Breeden, Grass River Garden Club; The Rosie Jones Horticulture Award: Vicky Hunt, GCPB; The Corliss Knapp Engle Horticulture Sweepstakes Award: The Garden Club of Palm Beach. The Photography Creativity Award: Ann Flinn, Grass River Garden Club. The Botanical Arts Creativity Award: Mary Pressly, GCPB. The GCA Novice Award winners were: Horticulture, Jennifer Banks, Jupiter Island Garden Club; Photography, Mary Webster, GCPB; Botanical Arts, Caroline Tucker, Cherokee Garden Club. For Conservation and Education: The Ann Lyon Crammond Award: The Garden Club of Palm Beach; The Marion Thompson Fuller Brown Conservation Award also went to The Garden Club of Palm Beach.
Garden Club of Palm Beach Flower Show Awards were given for the following: Floral Design: The Bunny Nelson Memorial Trophy: Marybeth Sotos and Joette Keen, GCPB; Traditional Arrangement Trophy: Ginny Parker, GCPB; Horticulture Club Sweepstakes Award: Kit Pannill, GCPB; Best Orchid in Show: Wylene Commander, GCPB; Best Novice in Orchids Award: Jennifer Banks, Jupiter Island Garden Club; Best Novice in Par Class Award: Alison Sieving, GCPB; The Bunnie DuPont Hibiscus Trophy; Jody Bush, Jupiter Island Garden Club; The JoJo Walton Memorial Trophy: Kit Pannill, GCPB; The Frances Archbold Hufty Trophy: Vickie Denton, GCPB; and The William G. Pannill Photography Trophy: Marilyn Beuttenmuller, GCPB.
L. to r.: Pam Williams, hospitality chairman, and Sue Strickland, GCPB past president. Williams and Debby Maschmeyer were co-chairs of the Preview Party; Elizabeth Matthews was at the front desk during the event.Betsy and George Matthews.Mary Pressly’s centerpiece was shaded by lady palms and composed from a colorful gush of color in a gold-and-white container.The main room at the GCA Flower Show.The centerpiece was accented with coxcombs.An orchid from the gardens of GCPB member Nancy Murray.Chris Duncan.Holly Breeden’s begonia was ” a perfect specimen,” commented the judges, who bestowed a 1st and the Clarissa Willemsen Horticulture Preparation Award.Holly Breeden and Bill Dunphy.In the Framed in the Gilded Age competition, Mary Moretz garnered a Best in Show.GCPB members Leigh Failing and Lisa Bertles, co-chairs of the Flower Show.The judges arrive.Along with making selections of excellence, the judges make comments.More than 100 Zone member guests arrived an hour before GCPB members expected at 6:30, making for rubbing-elbows logistics, finessed when party chairs moved the reception al fresco, guiding waiters with wine trays outside to the multitude of guests.“Super! Buddha would be proud” were the judges comments for Christina Kramer’s Zen-like miniature garden.Missy Geisler and Frederick Wright Jr.Marybeth Sotos and Joette Keen’s 1st in Floral Design, “a powerful triumph.”Merrilyn Bardes and Piper Quinn.“Skillful and unique,” for Nancy Madden, the 2019 Sandra Baylor Novice Floral Design Award.The Flower Show was SRO.Heather Murray’s leafing.Bobbie Lindsay’s leafing.Quite good.Birgitt Hilton.Guests arrived in cars, buses, vans, Ubers, and … bicycles. Above, Miguel Rosales and John David Corey.Gil Walsh and John Johnston.Heather and Patrick Henry.Mary Pressly’s 1st in Botanical Arts, ” … exquisite workmanship …individual components create a unite of design.”Marianne Salas, Jennifer Sterling, and Audrey McMenamy.Brenda Callaway’s Lobster Claws.Christine Aylward’s distinctive container plant.Linda Beatty’s Crimson Bouquet.Melinda Hassen.Connie and Peter Geisler.Ann Flinn.Among the “Diggers and Climbers,” Mary Pressly’s assemblage from recycled materials, “an imaginative and skillful creation.”A colorful spin.A Kit Pannill cutting.L. to r.: Alison Sieving received one of the Novice Awards; Shell Berry, president of the Sand Hills Garden Club (Augusta, Georgia).For the propagation of a coconut orchid, Jennifer Banks received the GCA Novice Award for Horticulture.Botanical design tableaux in one of the Addison Mizner-designed rooms at the O’Keeffe Gallery.Nancy Mendel.Judges Commendation for the 2019 GCA Flower Show.
ANSG earns spotlight
Ann Norton Sculpture Gardens
253 Barcelona Road – West Palm Beach
“We are honored by the Florida Artists Hall of Fame recognition for Ann Norton’s artistic legacy and the National Trust’s acceptance of her home and gardens in the Historic Artists’ Homes and Studios program (HAHS),” said Frances Fisher, chairman of the Ann Norton Sculpture Gardens board of trustees. The Florida Artists Hall of Fame, administered by the Department of State’s Cultural Affairs Division, has tapped sculptor Ann Weaver Norton as one of its 2019 designates. Norton joins an illustrious group of past nominees, including Duane Hanson, Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist, Addison Mizner, Tennessee Williams, Zora Neale Hurston, Jimmy Buffett, and Ernest Hemmingway. Ann Norton’s home, studio and gardens joins 30 other historic creative sites, including the Georgia O’Keeffe Home & Studio, Pollock-Krasner House & Study Center, Andrew Wyeth Studio, and the Saint-Gaudens National Historic Park. The HAHS program is ” … dedicated to preserving and interpreting the places where art was made … to communicate power of place through physical and ephemeral sensations.”
“Ann Norton’s sculpture adds a noteworthy chapter to Modernism,” said Frances Fisher. “The house, studio and gardens give visitors a complete vision of the artist’s work in its intended setting,” she added. Commissioned by the Florida Council on Arts and Culture, the Hall of Fame award is a sculpture titled La Florida, by St. Augustine artist Enzo Torcoletti.Ann Weaver Norton at work, 1971.Ann Weaver Norton (1905-1982). Untitled, c. 1941. Bronze, 50 x 18 x 16 ins. Human Forms exhibition, Musee Rodin, Paris (1976).While children are taught “Look but don’t touch” when they visit museums, at Ann Norton’s sculpture studio a child’s creative efforts are encouraged, transforming it into an interactive classroom.Ann Weaver Norton (1905-1982). Seated Woman with Arms Folded, 1941. Bronze, 15 x 9 x 7 ins. Roman Bronze Works, Inc. (1950), Corona, NY.“Recognized as one of Palm Beach County’s significant cultural destinations, it is rewarding for the State of Florida and the National Trust for Historic Preservation to recognize and honor Ann Norton’s artistic standing and vision that transformed her sculpture gardens into an urban oasis filled with spectacular palms and cycads,” said David Miller, a longtime ANSG trustee and supporter.Ann Weaver Norton (1905-1982). Jitterbug Dancers, 1943-1947. Bronze, 18 x 9 x 8 ins. 145th Annual Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture (1950), Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia. Birmingham Museum of Art (Alabama) permanent collection (2015).Ann Weaver Norton (1905-1982). Gateway 2, 1973. Brick, 23 feet (H).“Sheltered by towering palms, the Sculpture Gardens’ art and ambiance are informed as much by Stonehenge and Kathmandu megaliths as Henry Moore’s abstracts,” stated Frances Fisher.
April 23, 2019
