Tag: 2015

Creating A Legacy

Creating A Legacy

In spite of the vagaries of spring weather in the Midwest, Mother Nature came through with another spectacular display for the Garden Club’s luncheon on May 6. The entrance drive to the Oak Park Country Club was a showcase of gorgeous blooming trees, flowering shrubs and plants.

Centerpiece by Sue Milojevic
Centerpiece by Sue Milojevic

The human touch wasn’t bad either. The tables bedecked with beautiful floral centerpieces and pink napkins, along with the twenty colorful floral raffle items all presented a powerful “wow” factor upon entrance to the dining room. Add to that the guests wearing beautiful hats and lovely clothing and you get an idea of the visual impact we felt.   Yes, it is nice to enjoy the four seasons!

 

Wearing a floral decorated hat to the luncheon is a tribute to our club’s 98 year heritage of women loving flowers. Granted hats and gloves were de rigueur for the well dressed women even fifty years ago, but today it is an enjoyable event at our luncheon. We promenade our creations and vote for our favorite decorated hat. Delia Vargas, Ginger O’Malley and Linda Zwierz received the People’s Choice awards this year.

 

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Delia, 1st
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Ginger, 2nd

 

 

 

 

 

Another returning favorite was speaker, Cornelia McNamara.Cornelia We last saw Cornelia’s floral magic at our luncheon in 2010. A Chicago native, who graduated from the Art Institute of Chicago, she lived and worked in Manhattan, was a candidate for the position of Chief floral designer at the White House and finally she returned to Chicago and opened her own firm in 2005. Although Cornelia has handled the floral designs for numerous prestigious events and weddings in Chicago, she maintains the demeanor of a girlfriend chatting across the table from you. While creating gorgeous arrangements with ease right before our eyes, Cornelia was also telling us about her flower farm outside of Chicago, “Five Row Farm” and her participation in “Chicago Honey Co-op”, an urban bee farm both in an effort to reduce her carbon foot print on the world. She maintains that 85% of the flowers sold in the US are grown on another continent with unregulated pesticides and shipped in refrigerated containers to the final destination. We can do our part to lessen the carbon impact, she told us, by buying locally grown flowers in season or to grow our own.

The Oak Park Country Club has been such a wonderful venue for our annual luncheon. In addition to being a beautiful location, Tracy Reyes and her crew are unbelievably cheerful and helpful assisting us with our early morning set up, special diets, bar tender, punch, car valet and clean up! Chairwoman Kathy English was ably assisted by board members, club members, guests, and husbands to deliver a beautiful event

Special thanks to Sue Milojevic for designing the centerpieces and to the Ways and Means team of Mary Ellen Warner, Ruth Rowe and Barbara Graham for the unique raffle items. We couldn’t have had a better day-of-supporting crew! Ticket sellers: Alice Blanchard, Sherry Pavel and Cindy Rossi plus  GC male auxiliary of Graham, Vitullo and Zwierz were outstanding.

Thanks to all who helped continue the Garden Club legacy.

View the “Photo Albums” in the side panel on the main page for additional pictures of the May 2015 Luncheon

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

67th May Luncheon – Garden Club Oak Park – River Forest

67th May Luncheon – Garden Club Oak Park – River Forest

2007 May Luncheon
Hats 2007

Although the name has changed  some of the time, the annual May Luncheon Festival has continued since the late 1940’s according to our records.  The hat parade began in 1949 and the prizes were $5 The funniest hat theme that year was “A Nest of Robbins in Her Hair” worn by Mrs. Chris Licht.  Is that inspiration enough for you?   Maybe the Kentucky Derby hats will start the flow of creative juices?  Mary Ellen Warner will be in attendance this year…she has always been a formidable foe.  Let’s please give her some hat competition!  ps the hat prizes are worth more than $5.

Something special at this year’s luncheon will be the awarding of two scholarship for graduating seniors from the local high schools.  Profits from the 2015 Garden Walk will determine how many scholarships will be give next year.  Two Garden Walk tickets will be in your packet at the Luncheon.  Please purchase these tickets.  We will have  the “Helper Husbands” : Graham, Vitullo, Zwierz, sitting at the tables ready to accept your credit cards or checks or even cash will do!

The Ways and Means committee of Graham, Rowe, Warner and Zwierz have been very busy creating unusual, whimsical, useful, and just plain beautiful plant creations for the raffle.  Did I mention unique?  You will not find anything like them at your local stores.  Ways and Means are necessary to fund our Club’s activities.  We do not charge for individual meetings/speakers and our dues do not cover everything.  In addition to our usual expenses for Community activities, we have our 100 year anniversary in 2017.  We would like to hold some extra special events during that historic year and our fundraising needs to start now.  Please support our efforts by purchasing some raffle tickets at the luncheon raffle.

At this writing there are more than 80 reservations made for May 6.  Beautiful people, lovely location, good food and a spectacular floral designer.  It will be a fantastic event.  We hope to see you there.

Linda Zwierz

 

 

 

Expressing Ourselves in Printmaking

Expressing Ourselves in Printmaking

Prior to our most recent study group, several of the Garden Club members had a delicious lunch at Eastgate Café at 102 Harrison Street. Then we crossed the street to our class at Expressions Graphics.Expressions (3)
At our workshop, Janet Schill and Carol Friedle introduced to monotype printmaking. First Janet discussed the artful history of printmaking, and taught us a bit about using watercolors. Then we outlined and painted our own designs with water color pencils and paints onto mylar translucent plates pretreated with a release agent. We used a combinations of freehand drawing, tracing and interpreting photographs to create our prints.

Creating painted plates
Creating painted plates

Then Janet and Carol taught us how to use their fascinating print machine to turn our painted designs into printed works of art. The final results were more impressionistic and abstract than the originals. We enjoyed the process and are all eager to explore more of this creative art.

Sue, Lisa, Linda and Elaine with their printed creations.
Sue, Lisa, Linda and Elaine with their printed creations.

Expressions Graphics is a not-for-profit organization located at 29 Harrison Street, Oak Park. They have a full lineup of classes available for adults and for children interested in various aspects of printmaking. Visit the website to learn more about Expressions Graphics and printmaking: http://expressionsgraphics.org.

Midwest “Can Do” Ability

Midwest “Can Do” Ability

GC April 2015_0025 “”

The promise of spring was in the air as the Garden Club of Oak Park and River Forest convened for their annual April business meeting on April 1, 2015 at Cheney Mansion. Elected to the Board of Directors for a two year period were:

1st Vice President (Ways and Means) co –chairs Mary Ellen Warner and Linda Zwierz

4th Vice President (Publicity) Elaine Allen

Treasurer:  Carol Gallagher

Secretary:  Joan Meister

President Barbara Graham made a few announcements concerning upcoming events:

Wednesday, April 15 at 12:30 p.m. print making workshop at Expression Graphis on Harrison. Cost $15, wear old clothes.  Attendees are encouraged to all meet at 11:30 a.m. for lunch at the nearby East Gate Café.  Read more about it at our web site:  https://gcoprf.org/?p=7146    Contact studygroup@gcoprf.org for further information or to register for the class.

The GCOPRF/FOPCON Garden Walk will be held Sunday, June 28, 2015.  A sign-up sheet was passed around for volunteers to work at the event.  Proceeds from this event will go towards scholarships for local students.  Tickets will be on sale at the May Luncheon and thereafter on the web site.  Watch the web site in late April for further details regarding the Garden Walk..

Bobbi Raymond invited everyone to see an exhibition of the original drawings used for her latest children’s book:  Three Sea Tales to be held from 5 p.m. – 7 p.m. at Frame Warehouse, 346 Harrison St., Oak Park.  Light refreshments will be served.

Ted Nyquist
Ted Nyquist

Ted Nyquist of the Midwest Chapter of the American Rhododendron Society encouraged our group to include Rhodo’s and Azaleas in our landscapes.   (Note:  All Azaleas are Rhododendrons.)   Proper ground preparation, filtered sunlight and plant selections hardy to -25 are keys to successful Rhododendron plantings in the upper Midwest.  Ted showed us lovely photos from gardens in the eight states that compose the Midwest Chapter to encourage and convince us that it is possible to grow “those” plants here in zone 5.

Mr. Nyquist has recorded several videos that recap his lecture.  Go to the web site:  http://www.midwestars.org/howTo.php to learn his “secrets.”  If you have further questions, he would be happy to discuss your concerns.  His number is: 630-215-5022