Pinestone

Ah, Pinestone. This vase came from the dining room of a home on a ranch that Jon's family owned; Pinestone Ranch. It was located just up the pass from Manitou Springs, a small town we lived in many years ago in Colorado. When Jon's mother passed away we had the opportunity to buy it. For many reasons it wasn't a good fit for us then. A road not taken. Though it wasn't for us, it was too bad it couldn't be kept in the family. But what else is life about but change?  So here's a homage to a beloved family home in the true west bedecked with the most luscious of local roses, amongst other little beauties. What filled this vase before my time with it?

Camilias are in

The most boring flower-not

I didn't expect to be writing about roses in winter. But it is California and there local roses available now that are wonderful. Got to confess;  I think the ubiquitous red commercial rose, that tight red bud plunked on top of a ruler straight stem is boring. I was speculating something along the line of the poor roses being held hostage by corporate floral industry interests. Then just before sitting down to write this, we decided to watch a movie made in the 1930's. In the opening scene the leading actress was blocked by a vase of those rose buds. So there's a tradition to this, eh? Could it be that somewhere along the line someone- men or women, wanted roses to stay that in that puritanically tight form? Maybe a fully open rose was just too..... suggestive. 

Or maybe I spend entirely too much time contemplating such matters.

These red ones have such heavy iconic associations they are rather challenging to use in fresh ways. This kind of challenge makes this work both hair pulling and really,really interesting.

The Flower and The Vase

 http://www.terrestra.com/floral/  

                       The Flower and The Vase 
       Thursday, December 12, 6:30-7:30
       30 Miller Avenue, Mill Valley  $45.

Here's a link to an event I'm very pleased to be sharing with Terrestra, a new store in  Mill Valley that sells many wonderful artisan crafted vases and home accessories. I'm going to be demonstrating some Holiday floral arrangements and talking about the pairing of flowers and vases- kind of a Flower/Vase 101. Registration is limited.

 Contact me at maryannnardo@sbcglobal.net or Terrestra to register.

Friendly Fall Fetishes

Every year, every season, brings a compelling new interest, a new obsession in working with flowers. I decided to look up the definition of fetish- yes, my interests had gone that far.

Fetish: 

1. An object that is believed to have magical or spiritual powers, especially such an object associated with animistic or shamanistic religious practices.
2. An object of unreasonably excessive attention or reverence
3. Any object or non-genital part of the body that causes a habitual erotic response or fixation.

Okay, yes for number 2- a little of number 1, but not number 3- well, at least not yet. 

This fall my fixations are marigolds, grayed out Ami majus (Queen Anne's Lace, for those who missed that post), echinacea flowers w/o petals and privot berries. I keep using them over and over, trying to get to something, trying to realize something or just trying. But time for that obsession to be over. After this week, no more fall colors allowed. We're straight on into Christmas dream time.

Striped down flowers

There are two flowers in this arrangement that have no flower petals. Hmmm?

Two Bits

Roses continued: There is a
flower grower in Sonoma County,
to the north of us called Neve Brothers
hp://www.nevebros.net.

They are fourth generation flower growers and have been growing some garden type roses recently, roses that actually open.

This is a relatively new development in the floral industry. Roses are mainly bred to stay pretty closed, never quite exploding into full bloom.

Thanks Neve Bros for getting on board.  Growers respond to what people want and people really love the garden type roses that open and have a scent. They are available
at the Marin County Farmer's Market, but sometimes their garden-type roses are only available at the SF Flower Mart.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               
                                                                                                           

And this fine little fellow sticking out of this wood vase
is the dried cap of a leek flower. It's a membrane that protects a leek flower 
as it grows. When the flower is ready to open the tissue comes off. They are these fragile little shapes; really cool and weirdly endearing. I've had the dang thing for three years.

The War of my Roses

A bunch of beautiful pink roses in an opalescent blue vase. This little grouping is messing with my mind and stirring up memories.

The first memory is of a drawing I made repetitively when I was little. The elements were always the same: beautiful girls in ball gowns in a landscape of fruit trees with a stream running through. It was the land of perfection in my child's mind.

The second is the memory of a painting I did about 10 years ago with approximately the same colors. The painting took about a month to complete and felt so saccharine, busy, and so... Baroque, I had it sanded down and made a different painting. That's how I feel about these elements. They are too pretty, too sweet for my tastes. Only this time it's simply a morning involved and not a month.

Way back when I was that young girl making those drawings, it was probably Easter time when I stood in the Hecht Company Department Store looking for the annual spring dress my parents bought for each of us girls. I fought with my desire to have yet another poofy dress, and choose one that was taylored and simple. It was a defining moment. That year I went from being a girlie girl (of princess loving and playing house variety) to a tom boy (Fort building, frog catching, woods crawling). In my childhood archetype, the poofy dresses went by the wayside. I kept the love of fruit trees and streams.There is a girlie, girl in there somewhere. Guess she still needs to express herself.

And as for the fruit trees, I present to you an Arkansas Black.

Vase O' Flowers, 3 ways

 These flowers are from my garden and a minor foraging excursion around the block. I live outside our downtown area in an old Italian neighborhood. Almost all my neighbors have some form of garden or other and they don't mind a little clipping, as we trade flowers and lemons. My fairly small amount of flowers and foliage turned into another fun experiment of making an arrangement and changing it slightly. That's about it, except I've been meaning to credit my husband Jon for designing and building the often used vase pedestal/bracket. I had been wanting something small to hang on the wall specifically for vases. We use to build and sell them many years ago and I haven't seen anything like it since.  Thanks, Jonny.

Buddy, mesmerized

 I don't think it's the flowers
that have caused that look. I think there may be crows in the hood. Buddy relates to crows like no other animal. He talks crow talk to them from the window a lot. I have a fantasy that one will befriend him someday. How cool it would be to see him sitting side by side with a big black bird, cackling together. I'll keep you posted.

Ammi majus forest in Cucumber Land

 Ammi majus  sounds like some kind of Hindu mantra- Hari Krishna, Hari Krishna, Ammi majus, Ammi majus.....
This is the Latin name of the flower I've known as Queen Anne's Lace, though it's really False Queen Anne's Lace- or Bullwort, Bishop's Weed, False Bishop's Weed and on and on.

I bought a bunch the other day at the Farmer's Market and came home regretting it. I decided I did not like Ammi majus anymore. No not at all, Sam I am. It was seen through the eyes of a bored lover after the flame has fizzled. Why did I buy it?

Poor flower. Then the challenge- how can I see it with  eyes anew? It's play time.  Ammi majus is a member of the carrot family, the same as dill, cucumber's good friend in the canning world. So there's my container. A bunch of Ammi majus can look pretty chaotic  with all the branching and leaves. When I sort them out and let them show more individually,they really do look quite lovely. 
Ah, the flame rekindled.

Journey north

 

Just returned from a 10 day journey. We circled the northwest, driving from the drizzly coast to an arid, volcanic, sage filled landscape of eastern Oregon and Washington.The main purpose of our trip was to honor two men who aren't on the planet anymore; one who passed on fairly recently and another who's been gone for quite some time. We stayed and visited with 8 friends and family in three cities and sadly left each destination. Too, too little time, but rich and full.

Along the way we visited the largest family run dahlia farm in the US: http://www.dahlias.com/. 

 We ate as many blueberries and blackberries as we could possibly pick, and that big tub of blueberries lasted till we got back to the bay area. As always I was looking at local flowers and plants along the way. Chris and Deb, coming in from the mid- west brought out an old, worn photo album belonging to Jon's Grandmother Esther. While pouring through it, I felt like a traveler of a different sort- a time traveler. Here she was showing us photographs of what was important to her, even though she's been gone a long time too. Her inclusion of flowers in her photographs here and there spoke very clearly about what was dear to her and remind me that these flowers sure have been pulling on people's heartstrings for a loooong time.

Ken's tree platform above, way up in yonder trees.

Animas

These long beans feel like skin, but not human skin... I'm thinking of hippopotamus. An eggplant colored hippopotamus.

Bowl O' Honeydew, 3 ways

 These days my garden is stalled out with the onset of the August coastal fog (which frankly makes me feel a little postal some days - to this east coast girl, it's just not summer). So we don't really get the heat needed to grow honeydew melons. I found this unusual one at the infamous Marin County Framer's Market this past Sunday.
http://www.agriculturalinstitute.org

Aside: Even though I grow some veggies, I go to this market come rain or shine every Sunday throughout the year. I used to manage the bakery stall there around the time it was founded, in the early 80's. I got to know some of the growers and was hooked. Being there never fails to uplift my spirit. It's the third largest Farmer's Market in California. The produce and flowers are amazing. Farming is such an unpredictable and endangered profession. I am quite happy to put my dollars directly into the hands of the growers.

But back to the melon at hand. I've never used a melon as a container and am curious to see how long the flowers last. 
The water will take on the sugars and probably ferment? So after scooping it out so that it didn't list forward or back, I put a floral frog in the bottom to hold the stems in place. Too bad the melon tasted like white fibrous matter, but luckily I bought it for it's container potential. 

Here's a sequence of 3 arrangements made in that melon. It's a great exercise to make an arrangement and take it apart and remake it again and again. It's less precious and there's always a million ways to fill a melon.

Two bowls and a cup

Besides vases I collect random bowls and cups.

And words: in this case the words container and vessel.

Right now I can't articulate how savoring words relates to designing,but somehow they matter, like weird little mantras.

 

  

                  

A lot vs a little

What I love about floral design is that there are so many roads to take when you have fist full of flowers to play with.

The flowers needn't be very expensive. You can take the design concepts of a more traditional arrangement and mix bits from your garden or the roadside with store-bought, as in the first one. When we open our eyes and minds to including what's growing around us, it's a big wide world out there.

This makes me laugh because while my husband might do a double-take when an attractive woman walks by, I'm more likely to do a double take when I see some floral something that's caught my fancy (unless he's really cute...).

The first bouquet was inspired by the stem of the sunflower, of all things. I loved the pale, lime green and wanted it to show, though most "design rules" may have suggested that I cover it up, not leave it sticking straight up. But as this blog shows my experiments in my floral "laboratory"( as in "la-BORE- atory"), I can investigate, try out ideas and have permission to make things look really ugly, so that they might eventually look more beautiful.

The second one is that five minute kind of arrangement. I don't even know what to call these: contemporary, rustic, messy? These are the ones where I could put more in, but often stop so that just the bare bones show and each element looks important.

A little behind

You might be able to tell that this photo is out of date. We've long bypassed these hellebores and spring branches. Just checking in. I've been remiss. And it's not as though I haven't had some seriously beautiful flowers around. TraderJoes had some amazing peonies a few weeks back from Half Moon Bay, brought out of deep refrigeration (peonies can be held in refrigeration to delay bloom time). The very first bunch I bought turned from magenta to yellow to antique white. I've never had a flower change color like that while maintaining it's shape. They were spectacular. I kept buying more bunches of them in other colors but none performed that transformation. But for weeks I was engulfed in the subtle scent of peonies.