Vases and More — Donna Hopkins

And then there are vases.
Most vases are recurring obligations disguised as home accessories. You buy one because it looks beautiful, then bring it home and realize you’ve also purchased a weekly reminder that there are no flowers in it. It stands there with its hands on its hips while you walk past carrying groceries, trying not to make eye contact.
So I’m careful with vases. If it can’t survive empty, I don’t want the pressure. A vase should have enough shape, material and presence to function as sculpture first. Flowers can visit. They shouldn’t be required to complete the sentence.
—Colin King, When One Thing Is Enough

There’s a lot to say about this picture.

I came across this vase in a thrift shop, but it was still pricey at $19.99. When I looked it up using Google Lens, it appeared to be a vintage Murano glass Jack-in-the-pulpit vase, worth quite a bit more than twenty bucks. I’m not really concerned with how much money something is worth (I am not a re-seller of things). And I’m not a collector of colored glass objects of art. I just buy what I like. This tall vase kind of had me stumped. I knew I liked the shape and the colors, but was not at all certain I could figure out a way to use it in a photograph for my current project. My florilegium project is, at its heart, a celebration of flowers, not the vessels and vases that hold them. Nevertheless, the vases definitely give interest to the florilegium photographs and are important supporting cast members. But no way is this vase not going to steal the show.

In order to make a decent effort at this photo, I knew I would need long-stemmed flowers, which meant another trip to the flower farm to cut flowers of the needed height (measured up to my knee). This is hot, sweaty work since the temperatures hover around 90 degrees every day in August here in Virginia. My husband was a good sport and carried the bucket along as I clipped zinnias from the field last evening.

I got up early this morning and headed out to my studio garage to see if I could figure this out. Since it was so early, I had to turn on the small task lamp at my workbench so I could swap lenses and clip stems and such. I hung my orange cardboard on the wall and covered the old wooden table with white paper. I usually work with natural light only, but I happened to notice that the light from the task lamp was shining onto my scene, creating lively shadows. It was a very interesting look, almost as though I was using flash. And I liked it. I played with the zinnias—all in the vase, one flower leaning against the vase, flowers piled at the base, and so on. I was surprised by how much fun this was. There it is again, that healing action, PLAY.

Since this work was happening shortly after dawn, I had to turn the ISO up pretty high, and I wondered if the flowers and the vase would be in focus. Would there be too much grain or a lot of noise? It looked like the image might be worth the extra work of setting up the tripod. I sighed and grumbled, but I did the necessary work. Then I was able to lower the ISO to 100 and get a nice clean image.

It might sound as though I made or took or captured this image. But that’s not how it felt. It felt as though I was receiving it. By being open to the idea of playing with what could happen, even at dawn, still in my pajamas (before I brushed my teeth or took my shower), the picture was given to me. This is low-stakes work. I’m not working to make a photograph for a client; there is no commission. I’m not selling anything or tied to any specific result. I just wanted to see what would happen. And at most, I’d be out $20 for a lovely sculptural vase. This is what I love about being an amateur. I do this work because I love it.