A Posy for the 85th

Danuta Zamojska Hutchins was born (1940) in Warsaw, Poland and experienced many atrocities of WWII and after. She left Poland in 1962 and came to America to study literature and language at the University of Minnesota, earning her Ph.D. in Modern Languages, Education and Linguistics. She currently lives in Storm Lake and teaches at Buena Vista University.

Along with her linguistic skills, Dr. Hutchins is an artist working in many different mediums. The Blanden will have on display some of her most recent paintings. She states, “paying homage to Blanden's Anniversary I find it just and appropriate to focus on flowers. Their shapes and colors, their fragrance and frail petals seduce our senses, hinting at our own temporality, and assuring us that even whatever we are suffering now - will surely pass.

A posy, a nosegay, or a ‘tussie-mussie’ is a floral arrangement, a small bouquet, known since the middle ages and particularly popular during Queen Victoria's England, when friends and lovers send posy gifts in which flower arrangements conveyed secret messages. Popular expression "Say it with flowers" hints at the ‘language of flowers’.

The posy bears an open message: enjoy the show and leave your cares behind. It is time to celebrate Blanden - Iowa's prairie treasure!”

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website