Wicked Beauty

This arrangement, exhibited at NY's Nippon Club and currently at DUMBO Arts Center, features one American Beauty rose, surrounded by the thorns of the honey locust tree, in a wire birdfeeder. 
 The thorns were a gift from the gardener of our neighborhood park, who had spied me gazing longingly at them for years. From first sight, I was captivated by their wicked beauty. Some of the spikes are 4 inches long! Formed in clusters on the tree trunk, they call to mind a medieval torture chamber. Yet one spring day, I spotted a fledgling bird slip inside the thorn clusters to evade a cat. That was the moment my fascination turned to love, which grew deeper as I learned more. Evidently dating back to prehistoric times, the thorns developed as adaptive protection against mastodons which favored the tree's honey-sweet seedpods. Even today, they are feared and loathed alike by gardeners, hikers and farmers (they're sharp enough to puncture tractor tires), so a new thorn-less variety now proliferates. Alas, I fear that the thorned variety I've come to know and love will eventually become extinct. 

Windswept

On my way to installing this new piece at the DUMBO Arts Center, I was almost knocked off my feet by the high winds on that freezing, blustery mid-January day.

Hence, "Windswept" was created,
using French pussy willows, eucalyptus, mums and tuber-roses.
If the arrangement doesn't knock your socks off, maybe the intoxicating fragrance of the tuber-roses will do the trick!