Flora in Winter Designer’s Quest for the Cup!

Sally Jablonksi, longtime designer for Flora in Winter and, has been selected as one of the top ten designers in the United States to compete in the FTD America’s Cup in Washington DC this year. Ms. Jablonski entered three photos of her arrangement designs from previous years of Flora in Winter. The three works she entered were floral designs for Portrait of a Man with a Gun-Ralph Earl, The Betrayal of Christ, and Christ's Decent into Limbo - Circle of Gillis Mostaert. FTD America’s Cup is a national competition that selects one individual to represent both FTD and the United States in the 2019 FTD-Interflora-Fleurop World Cup Design Competition which is the world’s most prestigious floral design competition. During the course of the competition designers will face time limits, pressure and each other for the right to represent the FTD and the United States. Join us in congratulating and cheering-on Sally as she competes in Washington DC over the 4th of July weekend.

Sally has competed in multiple FTD competitions in the 80’s and 90’s including the 1989 FTD World Competition in Tokyo. Sally has also placed second in the 2012 Connecticut State Floral Design Competition and second in the 2013 Connecticut State Floral Competition Masters. Don’t miss her design this year for The Discovery of Honey by Bacchus, Piero di Cosimo.

To learn more about the FTD competition please visit http://ftdi.com/ftdamericascup/

New Local Artist Rotation Makes its Debut

John Pagano, Infatuation (A Place to Go), 2016,
acrylic polymer on canvas, Collection of the Artist

The Worcester Art Museum is happy to announce the debut of an ongoing art rotation dedicated to artists who live and/or work in the Worcester region. Located in WAM’s “After ‘45” galleries, the rotation seeks to highlight the diversity of artistic talent here in Central Massachusetts. The inaugural display features John Pagano, a well-known local painter whose work is often on display regionally at institutions such as the Fitchburg Art Museum, ArtsWorcester, and most recently in a monographic exhibition dedicated to the artist at Worcester’s contemporary art space, the Sprinkler Factory.

A Worcester native, John Pagano’s paintings characteristically straddle the line between representation and abstraction. Pagano prefers acrylic paint, a medium associated with vibrant colors and crisp edges. Artists often favor acrylics when seeking a more matte, graphic quality to their work. However, Pagano’s use of the hard-edged acrylic paint combined with his expressive style, simultaneously conveys the appearance of fluid and frozen gestures.

Pagano describes Infatuation (A Place to Go) as an aquatic landscape that emerged organically through recurring shapes, colors and markmaking. He specifically notes the “blooming flower-type shape” seen in the three gray forms with sensuous red and pink outgrowths. According to Pagano, these shapes evolve into “a symbol of an infatuation, an attraction, an invention.” This painting is one of two canvases Pagano created in 2016 with the title Infatuation. Both feature the open, blossoming forms.

Pagano’s Infatuation is on view at the Worcester Art Museum until May 6, 2018.

-Nancy Kathryn Burns, Associate Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs