The first of my tulips started blooming  last week. The delicate and diminutive  Tulipa bifloraformis ‘Starlight’. Though spring is coming on fast here, most of my large showy tulips are still holding off. Maybe there will be spring in April, too, not just March.  I will certainly start posting my yearly spate of tulip images and adulations as soon as they are in bloom. But for now, because I am impatient, something else.

A few years ago I published a post titled: ICONIC TULIPS. A little history of the powerful and popular use of tulip imagery.  Little did I know at the time that I would become a “collector” of tulip imagery.   It is quite amazing when you start looking how often the simple beauty of tulips is used for advertising, art, architectural decoration, clothing, etc. This post will simply share my favorites  over the past few years. All over the world, and here at home (mostly at Goodwill), I’ve turned my admiring lens toward the tulip as image. What I have captured is not only the iconic tulip, but also the ironic tulip. High art and kitsch. Handmade and mass produced here they are:

House address sign Kapoho Tidepools, Big Island, Hawaii.

Freeway on ramp decoration in Mount Vernon, Washington.

Over-priced rummage sale in Sturgeon Bay , Wisconsin.

Door to Horizon Herbs billing office, Grants Pass, Oregon.

Detail of a Baroque painting in the Museo Nazionale Palazzo Reale, Pisa, Italy.

Flea Market Cologne, Germany.

Goodwill, Bellevue, Washington.

Could these be Egyptian lotuses instead of tulips on the facade of this Lake Mills Wisconsin cafe?

Beeferoo restaurant, Iron River, Michigan.

Goodwill , Seattle, Washington.

Capital Hill, Seattle, Washington.

School mural, Brooklyn, New York.

Unplugged fountain, Bellevue, Washington.

“Tulip for Patti Smith” by John Buck at Greg Kucera Gallery, Seattle, Washington.

Litter, Eugene, Oregon.

Restaurant lamp, Pisa , Italy.

Turkish Tile, Seattle Art Museum.

The world’s  oldest perfume factory, Farina, in Cologne ,Germany.

A bouquet of plastic tulips made by a 3D printer in a private home in Croton-on-Hudson, New York.

Michael informed me that what I thought were tulips were probably dinosaur foot prints.

Part of an installation by Japanese artist Mr.at the Seattle Asian Art Museum.

A bench at a Tucson , Arizona resort.

A Whirligig (the tulip flowers spin in the wind) on a front porch in the Green Lake neighborhood of Seattle.

Goodwill, Seattle, Washington.