Elizabeth Anyaa

Thursday, December 17th from 6:00-9:00pm

Join us at Gardens in West Village to enjoy wines from Cork, handcrafted chocolates by Wiseman House Chocolates and a fashion forward trunk show by Elizabeth Anyaa. We’ll have prize drawings, great customer service and the opportunity to sit down for a free landscape consultation with landscape designer, Aimee Weber – a $95 value.

GARDENS

3699 McKinney Avenue
Suite 310
Dallas, TX 75204
214.528.7770

More about Elizabeth Anyaa:

Elizabeth Anyaa’s artistic passion began during her early childhood in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone in West Africa. She grew up watching the women next door make tie-dyed cotton textiles and clothing that they sold to tourists. Anyaa began sewing her own clothing and school uniforms by hand from the age of 7, working with old bedspreads, curtains, muslin and whatever fabrics she could find. Her styles were so fashionable that her friends nicknamed her “Catalogue.” All during her childhood in Sierra Leone and her teenage years in Ghana, she was captivated and inspired by the colorful clouds, mountains, seascapes and textiles of West Africa. They continue to inform her sense of color and composition.

After completing high school, Anyaa won a scholarship and grants to study textile design in Finland. The Scandanavian nation, with its long history of textile design, was an ideal place for the designer to polish her skills in weaving, felting and surface design and to develop her artistic vision.

Anyaa’s unique training and global travels have inspired her to weave non-traditional materials into her textiles. Metal, leather, straw, plastic and other unexpected textures create eye-catching three dimensional masterpieces of wall art and home accessories. She employs the same techniques to produce creative and unique one-of-a-kind clothing and accessories.

Anyaa specializes in a threefold approach to the textile industry:
designing textiles for home and fashion; producing custom pieces; and teaching the next generation the dying art of handmade textiles, which she feels should be revived and preserved. As an educator, she is passionate about introducing youth to this age-old tradition and offers textile workshops throughout the city.

Anyaa excelled in her studies and earned a B.A. in Fine Arts with emphasis in textile design and manufacturing from The Rovaniemi Institute of Industrial Art in Rovaniemi, Finland. Her designs represented the university in several inter-school competitions and national traveling shows. Upon obtaining her diploma, she worked as the head textile designer for the foremost architectural firm in Roveniemi. During her term as head designer at the firm, she complied a portfolio of designs for use in upholstery fabrics, carpet, tiles and wallpaper that were later sold in the Annual International Textile Show in Frankfurt, Germany. Anyaa was invited to participate in several solo exhibitions, and her accomplishments were recorded in local and national magazines and newspapers including the Helsinki Sanomat, the premier newspaper in Finland.

Anyaa moved to the U.S. in 1996 and studied fine arts and marketing at Montgomery College in Maryland and fashion design at El Centro College in Dallas. In 1998, Anyaa won the coveted Best of Show fashion competition and scholarship at Career Day, which is organized by the Dallas chapter of Fashion Group International. The scholarship enabled her to study fashion illustration and marketing over the summer in London. Upon her return to Dallas, Anyaa was among the first designers selected for the Dallas Fashion Incubator, which nurtures small businesses.

Anyaa is currently a resident artist at South Side on Lamar in Dallas. Her fashions have appeared in national and local magazines and newspapers including Women’s Wear Daily and the Dallas Morning News. Anyaa has dressed Erykah Badu as well as local socialites.

Order your Original or All-Green Magnolia Wreath for the holidays!

Order now
It’s a long-standing Southern tradition (and Gardens tradition) to decorate the entrance of your home with fresh Magnolia leaves! Shipped directly from Georgia, these tightly-arranged holiday wreaths are perfect for front doors, office interiors, or simply hung on the walls of your home. Placed away from direct sun, magnolia wreaths also dry beautifully to make a lasting holiday decoration for years to come. Available in 30”, 36” and 48” round wreaths and 16” and 24” squares. Fresh boxwood wreaths are also available! Order online or at the shop. Allow two weeks for delivery.  Online prices (shown below) include $21 shipping fee.

The Original or All Green Magnolia Wreath  Order now 16 Inch $70 24 Inch $106 30 Inch $146 36 Inch $171 48 Inch $316	Square Original or All Green Magnolia Wreath Order now 16 Inch $70 24 Inch $106
Fresh Boxwood Wreath Order now 16 Inch $70 24 Inch $106 30 Inch $141	Fresh Square Boxwood Wreath Order now 16 Inch $70 24 Inch $106

Tazetta Narcissus bulbs are my new favorite old bulbs. Like everyone else, by the end of summer I am about ready to give up on the garden—the extreme Texas summer heat has taken its toll. I’ve spent uncalculated hours in the early morning and after work watering my plants to keep them hanging on…But seeing these forgotten-about masses of bulbs reemerge in the fall from their summer dormancy is one of the great rewards of being a gardener. And really, it takes no particular effort—just the initial investment and one weekend morning to plant them in. Do it and you will be rewarded year after year.

Tazzetta means “little cups” in Italian, and this is an accurate description of these exciting, showy marvels that naturalize well in central Texas. Unlike some of the larger-headed, single-flowering types of daffodils (King Alfred type) that gained popularity in Europe during the twentieth century, Tazetta Narcissus bloom in clusters, with three to fifteen flowers per stem. In some cases, there can be up to thirty flowers per stem! On top of that, Tazettas are more fragrant than daffodils and all varieties are deer-proof, as Narcissus are poisonous if ingested. In fact, Roman soldiers (who spread the bulbs by trade as they traveled) used the Double Roman Tazetta bulb to end the lives of suffering soldiers who were wounded badly in battle.

Tazetta bulbs were at the height of their popularity in the 17th and 18th centuries. Many of the wild Tazetta were dug up to use for hybridizing, decimating the native populations. In 1890, there were over 200 varieties of Tazetta Narcissus in production, but by 1907 there were only 75. Today, they are difficult to find. About thirty varieties exist and only about five appear in bulb catalogues. Dr. William Welch, author of Perennial Garden Color and Antique Roses for the South, has devoted much of his life collecting and developing new hybrid varieties of Tazetta bulbs and we are proud to carry them at our nursery. The Tazetta Narcissus we will be carrying for the 2009 fall/winter planting season are:

Avalanche (white with yellow centers)
Erlicheer (double pure white)
Golden Dawn (yellow with orange centers)
Martha Washington (single white with yellow centers and orange rims)
Grand Monarque (large white cups with gold centers)
Grand Primo (large white cups with pale yellow center)
Double Chinese (double white with yellow centers)