Store Bought Bouquets Class rides again

I love teaching this basics class and watching women (come on men!) who have been playing with flowers all along, connect more dots.

From the recent summer sized class. Thanks Stephanie, Martha and Cynthia. You were so receptive and look forward to working with you again. Each of you took it to the next level!

The Green, Green Grass of Home

After a thirteen years gap, I'm just returning from an epic journey back east involving 3 states, 29 family and friends, one feisty little dog and a mandolin orchestra. Still living in the memory of all those wonderful conversations and experiences layered over every day- get back to business. 

As the plane approached the airport in Maryland, I saw it- green everywhere. A lush green carpet below. Coming from the full on drought here in California, it was a startling contrast, but I guess that's one of the reasons why we sit on planes for hours. For differences. 

Summer in Maryland means taking care of lawns; big expansive, lush lawns spreading out. The convention is that they are unfenced (mostly) so one property melts into another with the houses doting here and there. It's a particular kind of chore/obsession- really, as keeping a lawn is a commitment of once a week mowing for at least 3 months, aside from weeding and fertilizing. The sound of summer is the sound of lawn mowers buzzing in the background. I know I'm back in the land where I was born.

 
 Ode to green. 

 

New Jersey is called the Garden State for a reason. When one travels out of the congested corridor that funnels commuters north/south, there is a lot of produce to be found. We were too early for the corn and tomatoes, but hit the beginning of blueberry season. With all the moisture back east, I wonder if more produce will come out of this area. 

  

On my list of to-do things in Brooklyn, I wanted to pay a visit to that renowned little flower shop that in my humble estimation does some of the best floral design work in the country. Despite Saipua being on Google Maps, they don't have a sign, and don't stick to the hours listed on their website. Alas, no one was home.

Is this the ugliest style vase in the world?

     
And on a lighter note- one of those posts that lingered in my drafts folder.

 I saw this style vase a few years back on another floral blog and  thought it was  a one off. My mind conjured  a vision of someone sitting in their potter's studio playing around with clay, squeezing the clay around one finger, than the next, the next.... Remove and squeeze together. . Make a little base so that it stands up. Wa La! The finger vase is born. Maybe giggle. Play is the mother of invention, but to be honest, I thought it was  really awkward looking. There couldn't be more than one of those in the world??

A few weeks back I was at an estate sale, like one of the best sales I've ever stumbled upon; appreciating antiques, art and things well made. There, I found a variation on that odd little vase and began digging around online. Had I had been a time traveler, or just more hip and current on all trends, I would have known right away that the little finger style- multi- finger vase had many brothers and sisters. It is a style of vase that has slipped in and out of favor, at least since the Tulip Wars beginning in the 16th century corvallistoday.com/Europe/dutch_belgium/bruegelboys.htm. These finger vases conveniently offer a  designated parking space for individual flowers and in the case of certain Dutch versions, called the Tulipiere, a place for bulbs. 

So here's the one I found and have been playing around with. It would have been easy to obscure the tubes with plant matter, but I wanted to keep them visible.

Here we go again

I have so many journal entries secreted away in my drafts folder, all unfinished. When was the last time I was in this place? Five and a half years ago. A friend of ours passed away. Life felt felt so raw, so very raw. There was no solace. I happened upon this new world of amazing flower artists/ designers shared through their blogs and got sucked in badly. Badly to the point of leaving the painters block behind and jumping back into the flower world.

Now another friend, another diagnosis. I understand the incantations and affirmations. I understand the deal making, the seduction of the doctors and nurses so that they will please, please take good care. But I can't know their pain and fear of these dear ones and the journey, for now anyway.

  Now I think of a woman I'm working with to procure flowers for her DIY wedding. She wants 50 bunches of a scented flower that is nearly out of season. She wants to use this fragile flower tied in bunches on her Chuppah with no water tubes to provide moisture to the flowers. This flower is so fragile it very likely will be wilted when she walks up the aisle, but she doesn't care despite my many cautions. She keeps saying  "it doesn't matter if they're wilted, it doesn't matter if they're wilted". It makes me crazy- should I protect her from herself? How can I be so irresponsible? As she has not shared her reasoning to me, I'm making my own stab at it this evening.  All cut flowers are in the process of dying. Maybe she want to be engulfed in the massive scent of these flowers just once and that's enough. Maybe it doesn't matter past that moment. And when this  bride walks down to the aisle to her possibly wilted flowers and husband to be, there will be full acknowledgement of the ephemeral quality of life.

Life is at the same time so precious and good and I'm so very lucky. And so I'll keep bringing you flowers and together we can make our way through.