Seattle galleries are abloom with flowers for spring’s arrival

Spring waltzes in with the vernal equinox tomorrow, but certain seasonal flowers have already sprung. Even a short, damp neighborhood walk reveals exuberant camellias, fluffy magnolias, bright daffodils and the pleasing punch-in-the-face scent of daphne odora.

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On the Seattle University campus you can spot a giant specimen known as the “Seattle Tulip,” which was welcomed with a dedication ceremony on March 5. Featuring wavy green leaves and a bright red blossom, the 12-foot-tall enameled aluminum sculpture was created by Pop Artist Tom Wesselmann (1931-2004). You might recognize it.

The towering tulip was originally commissioned in 1988, by Wright Runstad & Company, to bloom outside their building at 999 Third Avenue (formerly Wells Fargo, currently the Docusign Tower). When the building was sold in 2019, the sculpture was dismantled and lay dormant — like a bulb — at Artech Fine Arts Storage in Renton. An anonymous group called “Friends of the Seattle Tulip” financed its return to the light, on the grass of the SU Union Green. 

“Seattle Tulip” will serve as a sunny welcome to the $300 million collection (courtesy of local donor Richard Hedreen) slated for SU’s forthcoming museum of art, opening in late 2028.

Meanwhile across town at the University of Washington, all eyes are on the quad, where the annual cherry blossoms are due to unfurl any minute. As is my annual custom, I’ve been monitoring the live feed from the UW Cherry Blossom Cam with a botanist’s focus. As of this morning it looks like a couple Yoshino trees are in full flower, and the rest are close behind — just in time for the U District Cherry Blossom Festival (through March 29, including a Night Blossoms event Mar. 21). 

And one more flower festivity: Tomorrow is Pike Place Market’s 29th annual Daffodil Day (March 20, 11 a.m. - 2 p.m.), a rain-or-shine tradition wherein anyone can grab a free bunch of yellow blossoms while the showy supplies last. Bonus: a special busker line up. Does this town love spring or what? 

Local galleries and museums are going flower-crazy as well, with several new shows embracing pollen power (achoo!).

At the Frye Art Museum, Wallflowers (through May 17) presents a bouquet of floral paintings pulled from the Frye’s collection and arranged in an abstracted version of a formal garden. Among the galleries’ trellised walls and peek-a-boo views are still-lifes spanning the 19th and 20th centuries — each of which reveals how different artists have explored and expanded the tradition. 

See pretty pink “Roses” by Danish artist Soren Emil Carlsen, blousy and soft-lit “Chrysanthemums” by John Marshall Gamble, mid-century modern “Poppies” by Seattle artist Margie H. Griffin and “Still Life with Lilacs” by Northwest artist Delbert Gish (now 90 years old and living in Medical Lake, Washington). All of these blooms express something unique to their artistic era while sharing the message that cut flowers wilt (translation: life is fleeting, put down your phone). 

Among the still-lifes are takes on floral wallpaper by contemporary artists from all over, including Polly Apfelbaum, Azadeh Gholizadeh and Jite Agbro. These artists dissect floral imagery, grafting original strains with digital patterns to create a whole new kind of still-life on the walls. The most spectacular of these is “Wallwork,” a mural-scale, immersive piece by Nick Cave, inspired by vintage tin trays adorned with flowers.

At Seattle Art Museum, Meadow is a new installation (through April 11, 2027) of oversized flowers hanging above visitors’ heads in the South Hall (free entry). Created by Dutch artist duo Studio DRIFT, the kinetic blossoms open and close according to human presence. Once triggered, the printed fabric flowers burst open as if in slow-mo, revealing an intricate architecture of petals and colored light within.

And there are plenty more flowers for the picking. 

In South Lake Union, gaze upon the clay garden of Bellingham artist Holly Hudson’s “The Giving Tree (World Tree)” (through August; SLU art tour May 13, 6-8 p.m.). Part of the Shunpike Storefronts program, the enormous ceramic tableau — with 152 separate porcelain sculptures — takes over a long storefront window at Terry and Republican streets. Blending Wedgwood-style pottery with myths from many cultures, the scene depicts flora, fauna and humanity fully connected, including legs that sprout flowering branches, a human head sitting in a bird’s nest and a fox wrapped in rose thorns.

At Pacific Place, the small but mighty Ghost Gallery presents Tonic: A Medicinal Flora and Fungi Group Exhibition (through April). Some 98 artists share paintings, pottery, potions and all kinds of curiosities inspired by natural healing. I’m especially fond of Julie Ann Mann’s sculptures with Devil’s Claw and deer vertebrae, Wynnona Susilo’s flowery tapestry and Jana Nicole’s collaged paper botanicals. 

Continue your garden art walk southward and check out Interplay, at Patricia Rovzar Gallery downtown (through March 28). Here, San Francisco botanical artist Ivy Jacobsen uses multiple layers of oil, acrylic and collage to add depth to portraits of the plants all around her, which mingle with flora from her imagination. 

And in Pioneer Square, J. Rinehart Gallery presents two Northwest artists who know their way around a garland: Gala Bent, whose delicate, flower-infused drawings in A Woman Awash tell the story of a woman lost at sea; and natural fiber artist Tininha Silva (featured in Season 1 of Art by Northwest), whose It’s Not What I See, It’s How I Sea features organic wall sculptures that morph and bloom like undersea bouquets. (Both shows through March 25; joint artists talk March 21 at 1 p.m.)

All this flower talk has me ready for some dancing.

Let’s start with RoCoCoCoCo. Subtitled A Situation for Dancing in Four Movements, this captivating work of contemporary dance was created by longtime Seattle choreographer Heather Kravas, whose vision for the piece is “a DIY folk dance that turns into a snowflake, fractals into a vortex, veers into a grocery list, emanates like an aura, aligns like a pinball machine, and collaborates like an ant colony.” 

Which is pretty much exactly what it looked like to me when I saw the work-in-progress presentation at Base: Experimental Arts Space back in August. Collaborating with a whole slew of local movement artists, Kravas has created a series of duets, quartets and combos that require exhaustive repetitive motions and immense focus from the dancers. 

How are they counting?? I wondered this many times during the preview, during which dancers created shifting geometries in repeating pony-hops around the room, their simple sneakers beating an aural tattoo on the floor. What starts out feeling somewhat maddening soon pulls you in like a mesmerist — suddenly you’re completely enraptured by what’s unfolding on stage. I found myself doing pony-hops around my house for days after. 

Kravas is presenting the show in a gradually unfolding way as well, with four nights of one-hour performances (with different dancers and different movements), and/or the hardcore option of a 4.5-hour night that offers all the segments in succession. Whatever you choose, be prepared to find the patterns imprinted on your memory. (March 26 - April 4; presented by Velocity at 12th Avenue Arts)

I’ll close with two more dance events that’ll put a spring in your step:

 The legendary Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater returns to The Paramount with works new and classic (Mar. 20-22). And Seattle dancer/choreographer Amy O’Neal reprises a previous work rooted in street, club and contemporary dance with Again, There Is No Other (The Remix), at On the Boards (Mar. 26-28).