I first designed the CHOCOLATE LILY Bell in 1991, at the suggestion of a client whom I met when she & her husband began visiting my studio in Sedona, Arizona. Annette Winner was a docent at the Botanical Garden in San Diego & her description of this wildflower frittilaria biflora with its succulent common name reeked seductively with potential marketing. Additionally, its lovely form immediately began resonating as one of my most successful bells… many, many thanks to you Annette!
The GRB BELLS line has always been an evolved continuation exploring such inspiration!
Now, this is not the first lily bell I’ve designed. The form obviously suggests “bell-ness” & probably was one of the first half dozen designs of my bell explorations… including the third in the Limited Edition series which began the line. I’m sharing a scan of the cover of an early catalog, which I designed & inked, photocopied, hand-addressed, stamped & mailed was the format I used to promote & sell the bells during the 1970-80s, this one shows the first decade of annual designs…
The SMALLER LILY Bell is also dated during that third year… 1986.
It is great fun to play with these images from the archive I have been collecting of the various modes & formats I’ve used during my recent decades of sharing images & writing!
We have loved for years to grow various Brugmansia on our upper deck . One year it bloomed quite vigorously when we brought it in to save it from an early frost!
I’ve rediscovered this image of the native Datura which I loved as a night blooming weed in Arizona… It looks very similar, except that the blossoms grow more vertically. Another common name is jimson weed or locoweed, because it is hallucinogenic.
Georgia O’Keefe made several paintings depicting the bloom…
