Lime Yellow Tiger Lily

Living room wall decor that is not a canvas print tends to be three-dimensional — ceramics, sculptural objects, things that respond to light in ways a flat surface cannot. The Lime Yellow Tiger Lily is kiln-fired ceramic in a lime yellow glaze, with the swept-back petal form of the tiger lily. It has dimension. The lime yellow glaze catches light differently at different times of day. The Parrish Museum in the Hamptons carries the collection it comes from. That is the level of institutional consideration that distinguishes it from what is available in a frame shop.

Lime yellow sits between warm and cool in a way that cooperates with terracotta, warm wood, cream, and navy simultaneously. It is the color that reads as botanical in a room with natural tones and as the warm point in a room with cooler tones. The tiger lily form adds movement — the swept-back petals create a dynamic profile that works on walls that have other objects and on walls that have nothing else. The Parrish Museum carries it. The Hamptons contain a wide range of interior color decisions and the museum has made a purchasing choice that holds up across all of them.

The Lime Yellow Tiger Lily is a specific birthday gift for a woman who loves art because it comes from a collection stocked in the Parrish Museum in the Hamptons and the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. It is handmade in Toronto by a studio that has been designing ceramic flowers since 1999. It ships gift-ready in a Chive box. It hangs in 90 seconds. A woman who loves art will note the provenance within about 30 seconds of opening it, which is the correct response to a gift that was actually chosen for her rather than for the occasion.

The tiger lily is associated with confidence, pride, and positive thinking in floral symbolism — it is the flower that leans forward rather than drooping. In some traditions it represents wealth and prosperity. As a birthday gift it carries the implication that the recipient has these qualities, which is a more considered gift message than most birthday flowers convey. The lime yellow version of this tradition was designed in Toronto and is sold in art museum gift shops. The symbolism is intact. The color is a Chive decision.

Lime yellow and blue are complementary colors, which means they sit directly opposite each other on the color wheel and create maximum contrast when placed together. On a wall, a Lime Yellow Tiger Lily next to a Powder Blue Aphrodite Dahlia or Pastel Blue Rose creates a combination that reads as deliberate and confident. The people who come to the Chive stand at Chelsea every year — the ones who know about the discontinued pieces — have been building these walls for a decade. The combination works. The color theory is on their side.

The Lime Yellow Tiger Lily is a specific gift for a gardener who grows tiger lilies and has opinions about them. They will recognize the form immediately — the swept-back petals, the forward-facing posture — and find the lime yellow color either surprising or exactly right, both of which are correct responses to a Chive design decision. The Parrish Museum carries this collection. Gardeners who appreciate the institution of botanical accuracy tend to appreciate ceramic interpretations that are honest about being interpretations rather than reproductions.

The tiger lily has swept-back petals that curve away from the center, giving it a dynamic, outward-facing profile. The stargazer lily (also in the collection) faces upward with more open petals and a more symmetrical form. Both are ceramic, both are kiln-fired, both are in the English Garden Collection. The tiger lily in lime yellow reads as more energetic on a wall — it has movement. The stargazer is more composed. Both are the kinds of differences that matter to the people who have been coming to the Chelsea stand for a decade and know the catalogue.

Tiger lilies in nature are typically orange with dark spots — a color combination that botanists found appropriate and gardeners have been growing for several hundred years. Chive made this one lime yellow, which is not a color the tiger lily traditionally comes in, and added the spots anyway because the spots belong to the form. Whether the Lime Yellow Tiger Lily has any feelings about this departure from botanical convention is not information we have been able to access through kiln-firing. It hangs on walls in the Parrish Museum gift shop. We consider this a form of acceptance.