Spring is here, and The Flower Fields at Carlsbad Ranch are blooming, but there's more to see there than just acres of flowers.
Driving down Interstate 5, you can see the rows and rows of ranunculus at The Flower Fields, creating a calliope of colors, much like an artist’s palette.
“It’s literally living art. That’s how we feel it,” Flower Fields marketing manager Taylor Moss said.
That’s part of the reason why The Flower Fields started partnering with artists two years ago, she said.
“We just wanted to kind of see what they could offer, how they could bring an experience to our guests,” Moss said.
It started with a local artist, Jennifer Coburn, and metal butterfly sculptures.
“They actually moved with the wind. So they actually had movement, which was really nice," she said. "And then last year we had Michael Summers, a local muralist, come and paint us a mural, which was amazing.”
This year, it’s Alex Heveri, a Tucson-based steel and glass structures artist who grew up in Coronado. Her exhibit is called "Glass in Flight."
“They're about pollinators and insects and flowers and the love of color. And our planet,” she said.
After discovering that ranunculus is wind-pollinated, she created a new sculpture called the Flower Fields Beehive. It's her favorite sculpture, she said.
"I took some artistic liberties ... and instead of the beehive cells, I cut ranunculus flowers out of glass and inserted ranunculus flowers," Heveri said. "So I incorporated the theme of wind and bees into that sculpture."
The sculptures are made from a special glass called dalle de verre, French for glass slab. The glass is an inch thick and produces deeper color effects when illuminated by the sun.
It was prominently used for stained glass windows in the 1950s and '60s, and the exhibit takes advantage of that by playing with lights.
“We placed the sculptures throughout the gardens so that at different times of the day, a different sculpture would light up," Heveri said. "And when you can see a sculpture with the sun directly shining behind it, it's a magical moment.”
That means everyone gets their own magical moment, regardless of when they visit.
The Flower Fields are open from now until May 11.
