I visited the beautiful 15 - acreMarie Selby Botanical Gardensin Sarasota , Florida , last month . Thisliving museumwas tricked out like an Easter egg hunting . There were eggs , for certain , and other oft - reiterate motifs from Salvador Dali ’s paintings . The hothouse and gardens were overrun with egg , backtalk , eyes , piano , butterflies and mustache . Orchids , bromeliads , tropical pitcher plants , cacti and strangler fig were backdrop features of this quirky mash - up . The planting system were well project , the sustainment superb .
Mustachioed air plant life . Tillandsia x ‘ Wonga ’ Photo by Charles Murray .
I ’d just walked 25 foot into the conservatory before I wondered : Who ’s pick out care of this richness ? I asked a friendly docent . She gave glowing credit to Mike McLaughlin and Angel Lara for the skillful upkeep . McLaughlin and Lara are , respectively , director of gardening and greenhouse manager . I emailed McLaughlin last hebdomad and he responded :
Mustachioed air plant. Tillandsia x ‘Wonga’ Photo by Charles Murray.
The Dalí exhibit is passably unusual , eh ? Angel and I are deeply involved in developing our exhibit and maintain our collections . Of course , managing all of this is a team summercater , overlap several department here and involving many volunteers . For this exhibit , we worked with Dr. Carol Ockman . I always shy away from attributing our succeeder to specific individual , because the reliable Sojourner Truth is that it takes the hard work , dedication , and creative thinking of a ‘ Greenwich Village ’ to maintain Selby Gardens !
I found the right small town .
Lys ( Lilium musicum ) ( Lily ) Floridali ( Flor Dalinae)Salvador Dali 1968 . Photo Lithography with drypoint engrave Collection of The Dalí Museum , St Petersburg , FL ( USA ) 2019 ; © Salvador Dalí , Fundació Gala - Salvador Dalí , ( ARS ) , 2019 .
Mustachioed air plant. Tillandsia x ‘Wonga’ Photo by Charles Murray.
TheDalí - inspiredpiano plantation owner and koi pool .
Dr. Carol Ockman , curator of SalvadorDalí : Gardens of the Mind , and Robert Sterling Professor of Art History Emerita at Williams College , wrote the foreword for the botanic garden’sshow pamphlet . She draw Dali ’s thinker as a “ geological landscape which psychology and Surrealism could excavate . ”
I excavated a 45 - year sometime surreal retention .
Lys (Lilium musicum) (Lily) Floridali (Flor Dalinae)Salvador Dali 1968. Photo Lithography with drypoint etching Collection of The Dalí Museum, St Petersburg, FL (USA) 2019; © Salvador Dalí, Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, (ARS), 2019.
I bumble across my first Dalí house painting , by chance , in a London hotel room , in the late downslope of 1975 . The small oil painting , I saw — or believe I saw — was a study - in - procession .
My don , never one for museums , cathedral , concert halls or garden , slipped away one good afternoon and made an acquaintance with Englishman Brian Mercer in the American Bar in the Savoy Hotel .
genus Paphiopedilum hybrids and the birds nest , Anthurium hookeri .
TheDalí-inspiredpiano planter and koi pond.
The well - dress Englishman pose at the far end of the bar . He ordered a glass of champagne and a swizzle stick . The champagne was placed on the bar . The Englishman took off his Homburg hat and Chesterfield overcoat . He took the swizzle joint and furiously stirred the bubbly . Dad was nursing his first gin and soda at the opposite end of the bar . He asked politely what the fellow was doing with his Methedrine of champagne . The Englishman turned easy toward Dad and say dryly , “ I hate the French . They go to so much problem to put the bubbles in , and I love to take the bubbles out . ”
My sire and Brian Mercer spent the rest of the afternoon drinking and laugh .
This led to a shut down - up coming upon with a Dalí picture later that evening .
Paphiopedilum hybrids and the birds nest, Anthurium hookeri.
Neoreglia ‘ Ardie ’ and Sedum teractinum .
Mercer invited Dad , my female parent , my sister Nancy and me to join him and his young married woman for a right , and fancy , English dinner of roast bitch and potatoes at Simpson’s - in - the - Strand . We returned to the Mercers ’ elegant suite , overlooking the Thames , to close out our hours of imbibition . Mindlessly ( drunkenly ) , we tossed a frisbee around the high - ceilinged living room . The yellow magnetic disc ( or was it one of Dalí ‘s fry eggs , masquerading as a frisbee ? ) keep bouncing dangerously close to a Dalí portrait - in - progress , pose on the fireplace mantle . The house painting was of Mrs. Mercer .
The retelling of this story seems eerily phantasmagorical . Did I really see a portrayal - in - progression of Mrs. Mercer ? I can find no platter of her portraiture . However , there is a 1973 Dalíportrait of Brian Mercer .
Neoreglia ‘Ardie’ and Sedum teractinum.
The elephant , butterfly and the Florida strangler fig ( Ficus surface area ) .
I am all the way - minded now , on good days , but my view of what ’s live on — all around me — seems specially sobering on days when I ca n’t scarper into nature , a park or garden .
The pandemic threat , political polarization , digital overload , apathy and worldwide heating are scarily actual . I can forego gin and soda water , but I struggle , at times , for a pleasant dream .
The elephant, butterfly and the Florida strangler fig (Ficus area).
My two hour at the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens , absorbingSalvadorDalí : Gardens of the psyche , was a turn - off your - screen breathing place for soul - enrich escapism . I was capable to forget briefly about current - day life .
Give me two hours a Clarence Day of action , and I ’ll take the other twenty - two in dreams.–Salvador Dalí
Heather Spencer on February 23rd .
Heather Spencer on February 23rd.
My garden adventure with friends Heather Spencer and Charles Murray concluded spectacularly at a display ofFlordalí,1968 , in the garden ’s Payne Mansion . The display is key out by Dr. Ockman as a “ picayune known series of notional color ( flowered ) lithographs from the Dalí Museum in neighbour St Petersburg … the plants inFlordalíare something else . “
Smiling daytrippers , zigzagging around the gardens , offer me with promising clues . Everyone — young and the old — appear to be joyful over SalvadorDalí : Gardens of the Minds .
Cracked up . Heather Spencer photo .
At every turn , I pick up mutant on an reanimate garden radical : “ Wow . Look at this ! ”
What a wonderful dream and escape from world .
Salvador Dalí : Gardens of the Mindswill be open through June 28th .
Cracked up. Heather Spencer photo.
