Elements with Enid: Line

<<< back to all Exhibits

Line is the visual path that directs eye movement through a composition and is the most important element in a design. An understanding of line and its emotional qualities lets a floral artist select materials to best express a desired concept. A composition includes the natural lines of flowers themselves, such as stems or erect snapdragons, and those created by lining up flowers and other materials. Students analyzed Enid’s transportation-themed designs, including “cable car,” “river boat” and “iron horse,” for these types of lines:

• Actual: actually visually present

• Implied: imagined in the mind’s eye, connecting dots (or jewels)

• Static: rigid, vertical and horizontal; provide stability, strength and calm

• Dynamic: curved, diagonal, zigzagged; create energy, motion and visual rhythm

Click image to start slideshow.

---

The Line Exhibit

Inspired by Enid’s transportation themes, a student team including horticulture and engineering majors created the steampunk piece, “Floral Locomotion.”

Floral Art students Eliza Oberle and Becca Catlin present their work.

Students explain how they arranged materials exploiting static and dynamic lines to give their piece a sense of motion.

Floral Artists Eliza Oberle and Becca Catlin.

Try to spot these media in this piece: permanent botanicals, plastic and wooden gears, wooden train tracks, foam top hat, umbrella frame, spray paint, tine, car rim, pitchfork, wagon wheel.

The artists used a metallic color palette to emphasize their mechanical theme.

From the artists: “In our design, the specific materials we incorporated have strong vertical, horizontal, diagonal and curved lines…”

“cable car” box bag by Enid Collins, 1964

The artists also wanted to remind us that Enid’s purses are actual transportation pieces, conveying our wallets, lipsticks and sundry whatnots, emphasizing both actual and represented motion in art.

Detail from “Floral Locomotion.”

Display of vintage Enid Collins bags from the collection.