| Pressed Passion |
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We discover how artist Peggy Turner Zablotny turns pressed flowers into fine art and in the process has managed to bring what is assumed to be a quaint hobby into a 21st Century art form! When it comes to the subject of pressed flower pictures it has been a long time since I saw anything particularly new. Traditionally pressed flowers were applied to card backgrounds in a natural growth pattern or were used as a decorative art form by Victorians. Later arrangers still adopted the accepted use of the growth pattern to design their pictures which made a recent discovery of mine all the more startling.
Initially, I was convinced that the large scale pictures were in fact oil on canvas but I couldn?t have been further from the truth. Peggy, who studied Art in Philadelphia, has a BSc and was more used to working as a graphic designer. She found herself at a local craft sale and as a treat she purchased a tiny flower press for the princely sum of 50 cents. But she had plans for it! She rushed home to press the petals some sunflowers she had growing in her garden. These she turned into a birthday card for her husband. A friend saw the card and, in this case, from tiny petals grew the idea of something more glorious. Peggy has succeeded in turning a charming craft into a 21st Century art form and we have featured several of here pictures together with an article featuring her piece dedicated to 'Nine Eleven' in Issue 34. Read more in Issue 34 of Fusion Flowers magazine. |
Peggy Turner Zablotny lives and works on the
island of Martha?s Vineyard in America where she has developed her unique vision of
pressed flower pictures. I first saw her designs when I visited an art
gallery on the island last September. Her canvases were enough to stop
me in my tracks - not something easily achieved. 
