Artistic Creations From Air Plants

Unless you are an enthusiast you will probably regard air plants as those strange looking objects hidden away behind the normal flowers and shrubs in the garden center. But not only are Tillandsia a plant genus containing some 600 species, but some are even fragrant. I had not realized that air plants produced flowers or that there were people like Josh Rosen who specialized in creating hand crafted displays. This article by Nora Mueller which I found on the Garden Collage website explains all.

You?ve probably never wondered what an air plant smells like, but curious minds should know that not only are some air plants?fragrant, but they smell exactly like grape soda? a totally true and totally weird fact that is definitely worth experiencing firsthand.

On a recent visit to the studio of Los Angeles-based air plant connoisseur?Josh Rosen, aka?Airplantman, we had the pleasure of experiencing this ourselves. Rosen?s workspace is tucked in the backyard of a Santa Monica home, with?Tillandsia (the air plant genus containing some 600 species) decking out every available surface.
On the walls are some of Rosen?s ?AirplantFrames?: hand-crafted?air plant displays?that can be mounted as living art. Rosen also produces a line of ?AirplantVessels?: air plants suspended above sculptural blocks?that act as?small, delicate accents on tables or windowsills (as viewable in the gallery below). Apart from his take-home pieces, Rosen works as an?air plant consultant for?private, corporate, and?public groups; when we visited, he had just returned from a consulting trip to Waikiki, where he is installing an air plant feature in a Starbucks Reserve (Starbuck?s?new luxe caf? line). Other examples of his work can be spotted at the W Hotel in Westwood and the London Hotel in West Hollywood.


?I was really not loving how [air plants] were often displayed and used: either put in those glass balls? which suffocates them, they like air circulation,? Rosen laments, ?Or displayed in a more naturalist way, like on a branch. Which I thought was?nice, but I wanted to showcase what was special about them,? he reflects on the inspiration for his designs.

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