marijestryker

Marije Stryker

Library Bulbs consists of 45 narcissus bulbs planted throughout the University of Guelph library. The bulbs were planted on November 22, 2015, watered weekly, and began to flower on December 12th, filling the library floors with white and yellow blooms and a faint but characteristically narcissus-like scent.

This project was inspired by the children’s book The Lupin Lady, in which Miss Rumphius -a retired librarian- scatters lupin seeds throughout Maine simply to make the world a more beautiful place. This process of planting flowers in public areas is reenacted in Library Bulbs. It was carried out in the style of guerrilla gardening- without permission, but with the intention of creating a more enjoyable environment for students studying in the library.

Planting the bulbs and watering with Outdoor School

The Results

Last monday the class learned the basics of Synchronized Swimming! Originally known as Water Ballet, the first recorded competition was in 1891 in Berlin. Water Ballet clubs soon began learning and rehearsing routines and “tricks”. As well as being a competitive sport, synchronized swimming was popular as large-scale entertainment performance in the early to mid-20th century, particularly in big-budget hollywood movies. Here’s a clip of Esther Williams, a famous water ballerina of her day, in a very elaborate scene from the 1944 film Bathing Beauty :

We started out the synchro workshop by learning some of the basic syncro moves I had learned from real-life synchronized swimmer Rebecca (who used to train 25 hours a week!!)–

The Basic Moves:

Lay-up – lying flat in the water and “sculling” with your hands
Tub – tucking your knees into your chest, keeping your shins above the water and toes pointed (pictured above)
Sailboat – the Tub but with one leg pointed in the air

After getting these moves down (more or less), the class made our own attempts at being Bathing Beauties. Here is the final result of our routine-