The leather is elaborately tooled with scrolling foliage patterns.
Plantings include papyrus, irises, persimmon trees and epidendron orchids, all chosen for striking foliage patterns that "set each other off and have a strong geometric presence," Ms. Spitz said.
Hosta lovers have long championed such an approach, creating borders filled with foliage patterns featuring blue, yellow, white and chartreuse tones as well as contrasting displays of leaves that are smooth or crinkled, rounded or lance shaped, and dainty or imposing.
The difference in temperature and air vapor pressure deficit (VPD) between summer and winter contributed to the present dynamics of foliage patterns.
In the image, lush foliage creates patterns of dappled sunlight on the freshly turned earth.
1. Raffles Foliage, a flocked pattern from i.e... wallpaper, by Brian Yates, a British designer, comes in 20 ½-inch by 11-yard rolls, in blue-and-black, rust, brown or tan; $255 a roll from (312) 455-0505 or urbansourcechicago.com.
Her paintings, done in a folkish, faux-naïf style somewhat reminiscent of that used by Marsden Hartley in his 1930's renditions of life with a seafaring family in Nova Scotia, have an earthy, here-and-now quality, with details, like wallpaper patterns, foliage, stones in a garden wall painstakingly delineated.
The meld of city slick with wide 1980s shoulders to the fore and gentler sportswear, patterned with foliage, came together at the show's center.
Inside, another old material, wallpaper, above center, is used in a fresh way, with mainly black and white layered patterns -- foliage, circles, hexagons -- splotched in areas with red, gold and yellow.
