Investigating containers, investigating spare

Not for the faint of heart

For Ruby, our best and most sweetest of wonders.
I've pondered the appropriateness of including a photograph of one's beloved pet laid for her viewing on a floral blog, so forgive me if this is over the top (in the image you see Ruby the white cat and her brother Buddy, the black cat taking it all in).  In working with flowers we try to help commemorate such a range of life experiences from the most joyful to the most sombre moments. My own experience has been such that I've had to say goodbye to so many family, friends,and animals (and I'm not that old) that I've lost a degree of fear around death- or leastways the handling and viewing one's loved one in a more informal setting. Some of my friends tell me a viewing of a beloved one, no matter what the species, is unacceptable to them. I get it. It's a matter of culture and perspective and I respect it all. This is my way of  honoring a more difficult aspect of this beautiful experience we call LIFE.

Ruby's amazing story: 
About 10 years ago, she was abandoned and left to live outside fend for herself. The exposure to the sun on a white cat resulted in skin cancer. When she was finally rescued our vet, Stan was consulted on her skin condition. He fell in love with her, but had no room for her. So begins another chapter when she was given to a woman who had a terminal illness and was waiting to go to Switzerland because she chose to end her life at a clinic there. This woman decided to put her two animals down first because she didn't want to leave them behind. But her timing was not good and she was left with her illness and grieving her two animals, waiting to go to Switzerland. Enter Ruby, who was her hospice companion during the period of waiting, bonding with the woman, never leaving her, being Nurse Ruby.

Then again Ruby had no place to live! My vet told me about Ruby when I already had a cat. Having struggled with mild allergies to cats,  I was not wild about adopting another one. But who wouldn't be taken with Ruby's plight? Finally we decided to take Ruby in. She got treatment for her skin cancer before we brought her home. By that time, I had just decided to pick her up, sight unseen. But Stan the vet said " I think you had better come meet her first". Huh? What I saw was a spitting, hissing, ball of fur. What were we getting ourselves into?  When Stan picked her up to put her in her cat box to come home with us, she bit him. I think she had just HAD it with having no home and enduring the painful treatment. This was 7 years ago. The exact moment when we bonded was when our current cat, Moo Shu disappeared once again for a long period (we had just found him after he had been missing for 3 months). I began to cry and Ruby crawled into my lap and started purring. Thus began our chapter with Nurse Ruby, the most gentle, nurturing cat, the best and most sweetest of wonders.

Christmas past

 What's that about Christmas? It's so yesterday. This year we were so busy that we had one week to bring the holiday spirit into our house and put it on the table, culminating with a really lovely salmon dinner for 12 friends and extended family at our house. We didn't even have a tree, but a "sculpture" which I would share  with you, but it just looks too strange in photographs. But though there was no tree, there were no lack of flowers, no lack of Decorations, or should I say Alterations? Please forgive the edge of cynicism. This Christmas dream stuff is serious business and not always easy in case you've forgotten already. Some people love it and others wince; it's not neutral, it's emotionally painful, too Christian, too... I can relate- every year I sit in the middle, waffling between the agony and the ecstasy. This holiday season that we engage in or try to skirt around and resist involves about one month out of the year. That is a heck of a lot of time. So give yourself a little pat on the back. You've come through to the other side again. And you may be wishing, like myself to do a little hibernating as you may be a wee bit plumper. Maybe followed by hiking or skiing or getting back into the garden. And if you live in California, you know that spring is very close, very close indeed.
  

 

 

And no carnations or daisies, please....

A story about paying attention:
Years ago, when my much beloved mother-in- law, Maggie was alive, I would send her flowers for special occasions. At that time she lived in Colorado and we lived in California.
Maggie had been a Stanford Home Coming Queen and was a lady of much sophistication. She was artistic, funny, and had a huge diversity of friends from all political leanings. I always wanted to please her as she treated me like a fellow queen. Whenever I would order flowers for her, it was always something exotic like orchids or some other little delicacy. And at the end of the long distance phone conversation with the Colorado florist, I would always request; no carnations or daisies, please. In my mind they were so....common- not like Maggie.

When Maggie passed I had the opportunity to view her entire jewelry collection which was immense and eclectic, as her tastes ranged from the traditional to very contemporary. I saw many pieces that incorporated daisies. When I asked her best friend about  it, she said that daises were Maggie's favorite flower. Damn! When we would visit her home I remembered seeing the ubiquitous daisy/ carnation combo and just chalked it up to...what? Obviously she bought them because she liked them. It was a real eye opener. It was me that didn't like daisies or carnations! I was so prejudiced that I couldn't see that she had an obvious preference in flowers (though I know she enjoyed the orchids too). After that I  try to keep my eyes open more to what pleases someone else without the filter of my tastes -- and to give those "common", oft used flowers a second chance.

Investigating pave's (flower carpets)

Pave'

1. (Engineering / Civil Engineering) a paved surface, especially an uneven one

2. (Clothing, Personal Arts & Crafts / Jewellery) a style of setting gems so closely that no metal shows.

Generally this is seen as plants used on a vertical surface, as seen above. The florist who has done some amazing work in this area lives in Barcelona. Check out flowersbybornay.blogspot.com/

Thanksgiving

 For you and yours. Top one by me, bottom one created by Max

Coming out

Add caption

Making one's way as a free lance floral designer, not ready for a brick and mortar store front is challenging because you want people to know you're here. My avenue of entry is the  Larkspur Farmer's Market on Saturday. It is a small but spirited market in a very beautiful location. My stall location has my back to Mt. Tam, but I turn around and yep, it's right there, hasn't moved. I'm testing the waters with different ideas as to what to sell, how to make a go of it.
In the market picture, two of the arrangements were made by  Max Lampert. We've worked together for 11 years in her home staging business and have made hundreds of arrangements of the living and faux persuasion.. Together we give each other permission to push the edge with flowers, and what defines an "arrangement". Our belief is that anything is a candidate for exploration. Included in the market picture is a squash arrangement.And the idea for the arrangements in the ball jars is credited to the Monkey Flower Group in Sonoma.

Version 2 / Yellow wax bean

 

Untitled as of yet. Here's a link to my artwork:

maryannnardo.com

Fall: is a continuous arrangement

                                            I'm always shocked when fall arrives. 
I swear. Every year I'm flabbergasted and pissed off that the days shorten. I think it's because we have very half hearted summers in the Bay Area and don't really get heat until September. Then the vegetables really start producing and -boom it's fall.  If it weren't for the total seduction of fall color, I don't think I could accept that the light is going away. Which is a long way of talking about this vase of yellow wax beans and dahlias. I always seem to make an arrangement in the fall that  starts off with a very spare beginning and continues to be added to until I've made my adaption to change of season sometime round November. I didn't document the completion of the top feathery down below from last year. Now I'll try and document the progression of the yellow wax bean one because it's changed quite a bit since this photo. 

End of summer. They just don't get any riper than this.