December 31

Winter, not quite whites.
Happy New Year, everyone. 
Here we go!

 

The morning after/ I am my Mother's daughter

 

The whipped cream doesn't come off my fingers very easily as I attempt to wash it off. I found a smear of it on a metal container sitting next to the incredible Buche de Noel (AKA Yule Log) that Anna Maria made. This was during clean up the morning after our Full Moon/Chirstmas Potluck Extravaganza. Whip cream fingers sent me to the sink for removal. The whipped cream persists, requiring soap and vigorous scrubbing. I contemplate what it does to my throat that objects to eating cream. It swells up a little and generally lets me know this is not a good food for this body. But every now and then it is so worth it.

Our extended family of friends put so much care into their  dishes. If I were truly my mother's daughter I would have made the whole dinner, baked a dozen varieties of cookies and decorated the house till it was completely bejeweled with decorations and lights and a sea of presents. My mother's finest hour came when she discovered that she could adhere Christmas balls to the ceiling with museum putty.

I didn't bake any cookies and only made a portion of the meal. But Jon and I did move the furniture around to accommodate 11, reupholster kitchen seat covers, rehang  art and  mirrors and give the house an industrial strength cleaning  for our friends who came despite their cat allergies. The highlight for me is playing with the flowers to make little vignettes. Everything else is merely the backdrop, the place to put the flowers and other botanical wonders. Flowers, flowers, flowers. At moments like these I hear my mother's spirit whispering in my ear;  just one more little something for over here and over there what about...? 

My sister and I have always wondered why we never felt the desire to recreate the Christmas tradition of our mother. Ours is very pared down comparatively. My experience was that there was a cost in our household of extreme stress and anxiety. My dear mamma had every good intention to create a magical experience for her 3 kids.   Sadly I came away with a bad taste for that kind of excess that has always lasted. This holding back is  not necessarily good in creative lines of work. Part of creative work is excess, sloppy, pushing the boundaries.

Bringing together friends and family (when possible) for a special dinner has become the heart of my Christmas experience, more important than any gift under the tree. This year my preparations went up a notch and I find myself in my mother's territory of over the top-ness, nothing like hers to be sure, but pushing my comfort zone. I learned something about letting go in creating my own version wholeheartedly but not going so crazy I was too tired to have fun at my own party. Hallelujah!

 

Deck the Halls, I forgot the holly

But that's because it's not native around here and it's inclusion seems to make more sense in other parts of the country, at least in the northeast where holly trees abound. To come across a holly tree in the grey leafless northern forest is quite dramatic to the eye.  And there is that pokey aspect; I would have been running around daubing people with peroxide and handing out cute little Christmas themed band-aids. 

So for our wreath making workshop, I brought a smorgasbord of the greens from our hood: Olive, Doug Fir, Redwood, Red Toyon, Privot, Eucaplytus.... There were a lot of people new to wreath making and all happily plunged in. Then a number sort of stalled for awhile, getting their bearings. 

Then it was as if someone pressed the play button and off they went. Not everyone's got photographed and that is my bad, I'm sorry about that, because each and every one deserved it's wreath moment in the spotlight. Thanks everyone. I hope to see you next year for round 2!

Y Oh Y and other post-Thanksgiving musings

When will I ever learn? Do not walk away from the nuts. I hope you enjoyed some moments of lightness and gratitude this Thanksgiving. I had a nice one too, thanks (after roasting more pecans). We were a smaller group this year; a fine variation, cozy and intimate. 

My friends/extended family hosted again. So I got away without making a turkey another year. Yay!  I know it's just a big roast chicken but it's daunting. See what happened to the nuts?

I saw a girlfriend the next day and asked if she enjoyed the gathering she went to. "It sucked", she said in her proper British accent. "I felt so alone, but I wasn't alone". We commiserated about lost family and friends. Yeah, tis the season for feeling overwhelmed and sad, maybe missing people and feeling left out if you were brought up in a Christmas centric family- or weren't and wanted to be part of the magic you thought everyone else was feeling but you. 

 It's okay. It's okay. Only 5 more weeks to go. Take this holiday season and plan your strategy: full embrace, leave town, dedicate yourself to doing something, anything that lifts you out of your frame of mind. You know where I'll be; trying to work my way through it with flowers and creating beauty/flower medicine with and for others.

 

 

Viva La France

Sadly, there are a lot more flowers on the streets of Paris this week. Flowers procured and offered to signify that people are bearing witness to a terrible tragedy. My  singling out of the terrorist attacks on French soil starting with the attack of cartoonists and staff at the French Satirical Magazine, Charlie Hebdo nearly a year ago is personal. As an artist, a fundamental contribution to my aesthetic sense has been in studying the history of French art and design. On French soil, many movements brought forth paintings we think of as beautiful today, but were at times visually jarring and revolutionary at the time they were created, often challenging the way people thought about art. And it is the present day freedom to challenge and question other ideologies that I hold essential for a democracy. Whew, enough politics for a little flower blog. 

I'm not on the streets of Paris to lay these flowers down (and breathing more easily because of it) but the desire to contribute a personal offering lingered. The intention sat brewing in the back of my mind as I went about my business which took me into a store that might have a few vases now and again. 

I kept returning to this pitcher. It is crude and beat up but has intention and was oddly compelling in that ugly/beautiful way. What function would dictate a front spout that looked like it had been smashed in, compressed?  When I turned it over and saw that it was MADE IN FRANCE, it seemed incongruous- not very chic, not very French- really?  A little delving proved that it is indeed French and made in the early 1900's.
While it's maker can't tell me the story of how it came to be and what function it's served, I am grateful for the opportunity to repurpose it back in honor of the peace loving citizens of France, whatever their ethnicity.

Celebration of Fall Workshop

What a great workshop! 
Serious students (including myself- so much to learn) continuing to practice the art and craft of floral design in this flower community. Sorry to those who couldn't make it. You missed a good one!

 

  

 

 

Rolling into fall

Gosh, it's been a long time  I've been running around on hyper-drive, not to mention I have olives rolling around on top of my car. That 's how I know it's fall. The non-fruiting tree I planted about 10 years ago decided to be free, free, free and became a fruiting variety (can I uproot and return a 20 foot tree?) I love olives but location doesn't lend itself to walking on smashed fruit. Yeah, one day I'll learn to cure them- on the list, waiting for planetary alignment.

So my driving ritual for  the last month or so is this: start the engine, accelerate away from the house, then olives accelerate and start hoping around. They fling themselves off the top of the car as I drive down the road (I'm talking maybe 3 or 4 at a time, but as I write this I feel guilty now. I'm an olive litterer).  My fantasy is that they are planting themselves. Soon there will be baby olive trees sprouting up all over. In years to come when I drive away from the house, I'll be driving through olive groves that my car helped plant. Did I mention that I've been on functioning on hyper-drive? That goes for my mind too.

 

Winter's coming and a lot of garden projects were waiting for the right confluence of planets to line up and give the word go. Projects like organizing the sheds, building a bench (my new photo shoot location) and laying a patio. All projects are ultimately making it a lot easier to work with flowers and give workshops at my home studio.

   

Ah yes, the flowers. My upcoming workshop at College of Marin is called Celebration of Fall. We'll be working with  metal pin frogs in pedestal type vases to make a tall arrangement for your mantle or sideboard or a shorter one for the table.  This is how you use heavy branches in shallow containers. This is how you keep all the buggers in place. Working on this type of arrangement really helps work on composition, color and movement in a big way.

 

Celebration of Fall:
Class ID 664
November 14
Time 10-12 PM
Location College of Marin, Fine Arts 312
Fee $79.
What to bring: see course listing.
http://marincommunityed.augusoft.net/

Good Morning Dish, Good Morning Pollen, Good Morning 7petals

 

 Nothing like pollen on a dish to start the morning. Then onto flower dissection. Flower play is a good thing and necessary therapy for working with flowers.

They call it mellow yellow.....

 
 Yellow isn't a very popular color in floral design. Aside from sunny sunflowers, it's probably requested the least in weddings and event work. People like to include it, but not feature it. Why is this? Is it too aggressively cheerful? Too hard to work with, too bold? I found this vase this spring in one of our local thrift stores. I didn't buy it right away. It seemed a little strange. Now it's my current favorite vase  and is a gentle gateway to the color yellow. I love yellow. Doesn't everyone? Why don't we want to live with more yellow in our lives. Why? Why? Why? 

In casting about on the online world, color psychology is a fascinating in- depth topic.  After looking at a couple dozen of sites, the consensus was that yellow was perceived as universally cheerful, but too stimulating- that is, if the hue is bright and bold and used in large quantities. Essentially we use bright yellow flowers the way we use yellow signage; that bright pop to get one's attention. Interestingly, before doing any of this color research, I took this photo of lemony sunflowers and softened the color in Photoshop to tone it down a bit.

   

Forever yours

Sometimes I feel guilty for getting to work to with flowers and not in more direct service to people. It's an incredible amount of work, but to get to create with flowers and be surrounded with all that beauty and energy is an amazing privilege. I've been pulled away from years of painting, in part feeling that real flowers heal and uplift in a more immediate, intimate way. They mark all our significant life passages; in sickness and in health- birth, graduation, marriage,and death. Wired in our DNA, flower love seems part of the human experience. They nourish body, mind, and spirit.

This weekend I got a call from a woman living out of state requesting a bouquet for her friend who had suffered an almost unspeakable loss over 30 years ago. They acknowledged their friendship and this loss every year. Oh my... When I delivered the flowers to her friend she began to cry, I began to cry and we hugged one another and talked. It was an honor to be allowed into that space for a short while. In that moment, doing flowers and being of service came together very meaningfully.

The Flower and the Vase

7petals Nicasio Wedding

My body felt like it had been through a spin cycle of a washing machine. Every muscle ached. I was moving through a fog of - that weird fatigue that leaves you both hyper and exhausted.

The big wedding was over and Max and I were in the home stretch, called "a strike" where everything gets taken apart and packed up. The remains were sorted and   the vehicles were full. I started to pull out and head home. A powerful scent wafting from the backseat made me stop and turn my creaky body around. Some amazing fully blown garden roses sat in a bucket in the back seat perfuming the air. Leftovers from the wedding, the spoils we got to bring home and enjoy another day or two.

The roses were so beautiful. Damn! I'm such a sucker for flowers.

This is the largest event that I've been responsible for to date, together with Max Lampert (my designer co-hort). It necessitated several vans and a crew to pull it off. The venue was a rustic roadhouse in Nicascio, CA. with many little areas around the large property to dress up. The wedding family wanted a more sophisticated but still rustic feel. I had worked with Max (Staging to the Max), staging the bride's mother's home years ago and they expressed complete faith in what we were going to do. Wow. It makes such a difference in having appreciative and grateful recipients.

I didn't have a chance to take any photos from this wedding. Jon is learning my camera and he realized that I would be too busy, so he kindly (what a guy) offered to come shoot some pictures until the professional photographs are available. And also thanks to Dana, Max's partner who carved out time to put his talents to task, Suzanne Shellhart for the addition of some key garden flowers, and our crew, Carol,  Cooper, Nancy, Carol K, and Sandy. And a special thanks to Julie, the chef and total mastermind behind Rancho's special events and her staff. There a a lot of loving hands behind these events.

Here's a few photos Jon took. I will be sharing the professional ones later.

This is a practice run for a vignette we are setting in the the entry 

 Installing the vignette