Portraits of Flowers - Tapa blanda

'The combination is deeply satisfying. Brender a Brandis discovers formal patterns in the rich luxuriance of vegetation, while Lima allows his thoughts to ramble purposefully like plant-runners. The drawings are accurate enough to provide assistance in identification of species but exist primarily as achieved artistic designs. Lima's descriptions offer hints for fellow gardeners but deserve to be relished as examples of fine prose; indeed, while reading him I was continually reminded of the wildflower books by Andrew Young, the English poet of mid-century, especially A Prospect of Flowers.' -- W J Keith Canadian Book Review Annual 'Tending to the practical as well as the fanciful, Lima gives simple design schemes, soil formulas, and growing tips. ... You need not be a print expert to appreciate Brandis's engravings. Some appear in miniature, others fill the page, and there's a bonus double-page foldout of rhododendrons. High-quality paper embellishes swaying tulips, beguiling snake-head lilies, and Oriental poppies. Even the lowly dandelion displays the uncommon art of this exceptional engraver.' Boston Globe Magazine 'Portraits of Flowers is, like a wild orchid blooming by a woodland path, a small treasure... The publisher, a small press located in rural southwestern Ontario west of Toronto, has used an acid-free paper that is creamy soft and lightly textured, and the volume is sewn together rather than glued. The result is a book with an elegant production that matches its contents. ... The exquisite engravings have a magical quality. Lima's corresponding miniature essays are a mixed bouquet of gardening lore, practical advice, memoir and whimsy. When the weeding is done -- or, at least, done for the day -- Portraits of Flowers will remind gardeners why they garden.' Macleans '...delights a broad range of gardeners from those who prefer to sit and smell the flowers to those dedicated diggers...' The Boston Globe 'This collection of wood engravings is a sheer delight and one can only wonder at the skill of the engraver.' The Ottawa Citizen 'Patrick Lima, in his introduction, writes that "after twenty years of gardening ... I still experience each walk around the garden as a small journey of discovery, a chance to marvel at the complex yet simple miracles unfolding constantly all around" (viii). It is this "Journey of discovery", so lost to many of us, which is recovered in these graceful pages. Lima is well known for his garden writing, including his contributions to Harrowsmith magazine, and includes practical advice in many of the "portraits". This book functions on many levels: as a gardening manual (although it would be a pity to muck up such an attractive object) or as a field guide companion, pointing out the subtle qualities of "Wild Ginger" (44) or "Indian Pipe" (67), for example. Practical uses aside there is the meditative tone of the work, which attunes the reader to wonders often missed in the daily rush. Lima has clearly spent much time simply looking, allowing what he sees to permeate his thought before flowing into prose. Many of his texts allude to the interdependence of all life forms, big and small, natural and human, and the necessary place each has or, as he writes concerning the "Northern Pitcher Plan" (62), "... each one important in the circle of Life." ' -- Joy Tyndall Devil's Artisan 'Gerard ... sees himself in the longer tradition of medieval scribes and Gutenberg, and most of his important connections are with artists and craftsmen of Europe and the past. His engraving is very much in the British tradition, with the feel of such engravers as Mackley, Robert Gibbings, Joan Hassall and Monica Poole... In Gerard's case, being a book artist includes being able to do all aspects of the production himself. No other Canadian private press printer is able to combine typesetting and printing with wood engraving, papermaking, spinning, weaving and bookbinding. His lifestyle, which is spare and simple, imposes the onus of inventing and doing everything self sufficiently and provides the opportunity to explore his creativity as fully as possible.' -- Kim Lewis Multiples, the Journal of the Society of Wood Engravers