Saturday Sharing (My Finds Are Yours)

It's official: summer's here, would-be vacationers are compiling lists of beach-reads, and reservations desk are being inundated with calls for premiere cool spots. Whatever you plan to do today, wherever you plan to be, be sure you can plug in to take advantage of this edition of Saturday Sharing.

✭ If you like flowers — and, really, who doesn't? — you'll enjoy Flora! Illuminated, a charming and delightful photo blog featuring some of the rare and beautiful floral illustrations currently on display (through June 30) at The Morton Arboretum, in Lisle, Illinois. Complementing the A-to-Z artwork are the just-right words of such writers as Longfellow, Shakespeare, Plath, de Maurier, Shelley, and Keats, as well as prose, song lyrics, and videos. The Library's FaceBook page is here.

✭ The Smithsonian American Art Museum has been working in Haiti to help the quake-devastated nation assess damage to and also recover and restore its cultural artifacts. SAAM's objects conservator Hugh Shockey is on the ground there and sends back periodic reports and images of the work he and his team are doing. Recently, SAAM posted on Flickr a series of photographs documenting some of the damage and some of the artworks waiting to be evaluated and restored.

✭ Smarthistory is a free, collaborative, Web-based "textbook" that uses multimedia to present engaging art historical content for students, museum visitors, and anyone interested in learning informally about art. Created in 2005 by Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, Smarthistory includes pod- and screen-casts described as "spontaneous conversations about works of arts", as well as audios and more than 200 videos about artists, styles, themes, specific artworks, and related art information. This fabulous resource welcomes contributions of photos, content (currently, Smarthistory is seeking canonical non-Western content), and ideas for teaching and learning about art using today's technologies. Smarthistory's Flickr group is here. There's also a section that provides technical and pedagogical information on how to create content, and a wonderful blog. Smarthistory is on Twitter, too.

✭ In late May, Jeffrey Brown interviewed best-selling writer Isabel Allende about Island Beneath the Sea (La Isla Bajo el Mar), her new novel set in early 18th Century Haiti and New Orleans. Allende tells Brown that her research took her four years and that her protagonist Zarite came to her "in a dream". Go here to watch the interview. An excerpt from the book, the English-language version of which was published this past April, is here.

✭ Looking for an interactive experience with Odilon Redon (1840-1916), considered one of the great figures of Symbolism? Go here and explore his themes and work, courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art. Images of 322 Redon works are available here.

✭ London-based illustrator-designer Liam Stevens has created a stop-motion animation of pencil and cut paper. It's charming. (I thank Escape Into Life for sharing this find.)

Waiting (feat. Jay Kauffman) from MakeMakeStudio on Vime