This is one of my favorite color palettes this season- and aren't those tree peonies amazing? Why does the description "vintage" come to mind? It's the color. Remember Bakelite plastic jewelry? That is plastic cast, chunky jewelry popular in the 30's and 40's. It still has a following these days. Sort of vintage meets modern. The distinctive colors were bright with a little white and maybe brown or black mixed in.
So much to experiment with in floral design and color has been one of the the most elusive and difficult aspects for me. Many designers work with variations of one color. It's a safer way to handle the whole color dilemma and a very effective one. My background as a painter asks for more.
People pictures rarely make an appearance in this journal. It's completely flower centric. And if people are reading this I pretend they are very far away in some abstract ether. I'm sort of writing to them, but mainly having a conversation in my head, only in Trebucet typeface in Font Size 12.
But in this case the people are as important as the beautiful flowers created this day.
These women are a dedicated lot in this yoga community. We have been getting together for years with our beloved teacher, Claire Colvin, who organized this.
We don't actually talk to each other very much, but are very comfortable being inches away from each others bodies to pull or push on this or that body part to experience the yoga poses more deeply. It's a wonderful intimacy that doesn't need words.
But today- today we ate cheese and played with flowers!
Top row: Iris, Kathleen, our teacher, Claire, Cathyrn,
Bottom row: Peggy, Kathy, Ruth, Stacy
Our teacher, Claire Colvin
Here's from the second new Workshop scheduled this Spring.
What I love the most is watching the evolution of people who come back and practice and grow. Second best is someone who is completely new and discovers that they could develop the ability to do this thing called floral design too.
It just takes practice and more and more practice, but it's easy to make a good start.
Here's some photos from the Handheld Bouquet Workshop using garden roses, herbs and other wild things.
So many beautiful bouquets!
Hiking through forested landscapes is one of my greatest pleasures on this planet. It's the inspiration for this workshop and prior post. Thank you ladies for joining the adventure. My apologies that the images seem a bit out of focus. I hope you got some good ones.
Why are people so enamored with
little lilliputian landscapes? We seem to revisit this floral amusement from time to time. Is it that we feel a hankering for a primal slice of something old and ancient, if not as threatening as Jurassic Park- at least filled with fairies and magic?
And how about those miniatures slices of woodland under glass, the terrarium? Their history
doesn't elicit thoughts of magic as much as rational thought, botany and science. A little more than 100 years ago Dr. Nathanial Bradshaw Ward, a physicist and
amateur botanist accidentally discovered plant life could live for a period of time in moisture of a sealed glass bottle. Ward
had a carpenter build a glazed glass house, the first Wardian Case. This
ultimate terrarium grew in popularity to house greens and orchids in
many a Victorian parlor, housing plants that survived ocean crossings from moist tropical jungles
in the era of great plant collecting expeditions.
I think the appeal lies in between magic and science. These slices of nature delight us and are somehow draw us in to observe and lose ourselves among leafy greenness for awhile. Perhaps that is why we revisit this botanical amusement from time to time through the years, configured for our current lifestyles and interiors.
Below is my homage to the fern and mosses and small spring flowers in this imaginary slice of woodland.
Yes, these old fashioned garden roses that look and smell like this person's dream rose. These were the roses I always yearned for on Valentine's Day. Never could understand why those red roses never opened despite all my efforts. I didn't know the Valentine Rose was another variety that was bred not to open. Dang! Why didn't someone tell me? All those hours at the sink re cutting and soaking.
It's a very long story, but is an interesting one indeed. I'll keep it short since I'm getting ready for Mother's Day and maybe you don't want all those geeky details. This info. comes from having done a lot of research and having given a few talks at Rose Societies.
Modern hybrid tea roses (related to that Valentine Rose) were created by crossing/ hybridizing a Chinese rose and European rose (in the most simplistic of explanations). After they were introduced to Europe, the old fashioned, scented, multi- petaled roses fell out of fashion in Europe.
David Austen was an English rose breeder who was a very significant link in the chain in the return of this type of rose to the garden and the floral designer. His first rose to have the feel of an old fashioned rose came out around 1960.
https://www.davidaustinroses.com/american/Advanced.asp?PageId=1906
Who provides a link to David? In my opinion it's Constance Spry, the woman he named his first rose after. Constance was a British floral designer to royalty. Yet she was every woman's Martha Stewart of her day, before she died in 1960. She was a designer, gardener, educator, and traveler and passionate about old fashioned garden roses. She collected rose cuttings or plants from Europe and the United States to be sure they were not lost and raised them in her extensive gardens.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constance_Spry
Enough said!
You can find them and me at
Ponsford Bakery and Inovation Center this Saturday
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Ponsfords-Place-Bakery-and-Innovation-Center/171195466244090
The question was asked as we were going around the room introducing ourselves during a floral workshop I attended many years ago. Such a simple, little question. My mind converted it into some sort of zen koan on the essential nature of flowers and why we were being asked this question. I was perplexed and befuddled. Come on Nardo, think! I couldn't come up with one flower that wasn't my favorite flower at one point or another.
"All flowers" emerged out of the muck.
And yet, and yet.
I bought some lilacs two weeks age. It was unusual, having not bought them the past few years because they can be unpredictable and suddenly decide not to take up water and wilt, or ? I was standing in the SF Flower Mart in a mass of lilac blooms, finally being seduced enough again to make a selection when suddenly overwhelmed by how much I really really love lilacs. It was nearly a pull out the kleenex moment, the only restraint being the embarrassment of being in a bustling crowd.
Flowers can play so many roles, but in this instance they were fueling nostalgia. Well, you know how memories are; so pliable and subject to interpretation.
But here is how I remember two moments in time.
Memory 1
It was a warm, spring morning in my second grade classroom at St. Bernadine's Catholic School in Baltimore City. In my neighborhood the crocus, daffodils, tulips, azaleas and magnolias bloomed within a fairly short period of time which made a particularly intense and heady contrast after a cold winter of gray sky and naked trees. Spring Fever was rampant. There was a ritual at our school in the spring. A plaster statue of Mary, Jesus's mother was brought out and placed in the front of a class on a table decorated with the assorted spring flowers. During the month of May we would draw names out of a fish bowl. If your name was drawn you got to make a little crown of flowers from your home garden to put on Mary's head and deliver it during a touching ceremony that entailed the class standing up and singing a song while the maker approached the statue and crowned her with the flower wreath.
"Oh Mary, we crown you with blossoms today, queen of the roses....queen of the May!"
Finally, the fish bowl coughed up my name. The next morning I walked to school gingerly transporting the freshly made crown wrapped in a damp paper towel in a plastic baggie balanced on my hand. Was the crown made from lilacs? I have no idea! But I do completely associate the scent of the lilacs filling the air while walking up to place the crown on top of Mary's head. It was a solemn yet joyful little ceremony. While I'm not a practicing Catholic, it still remains a moving, lilac scented associated memory.
Memory 2
I'm driving down Tejon Street in Colorado Springs during the first spring living in this new town and brand new life of mine. Six months prior I packed my little white Datsun with all my earthly belongings to move from Baltimore, Maryland to Colorado Springs, Colorado, the land of the true West.
A little more than a year before my college boyfriend and I embarked on a cross-country trip in celebration of our graduation from college Our transport was a Volkswagon bug loaded with two big dogs and camping gear. Prior to leaving he rebuilt the engine to get it ready for the big trip. Nuts and bolts had a hand in fate and the engine seized as we approached the Rocky Mountains. We got towed to the Springs and my boyfriend's friend's house while the engine got repaired. His friend had one very compelling roommate...
This was not the cell phone era. After returning to Baltimore I eventually parted with my college boyfriend (wonderful- but not the right guy). Jon and I exchanged approximately 24 letters, 2 phone calls, and one short visit, I returned to Colorado to move in with him. We are still together.
It's not always a bed of lilacs, but it is one of my very best choices in life.
On the drive on that spring day I passed lilac bush after lilac bush, planted in the medians, planted in yards. I wondered why on earth the town had not been named Lilac Springs. I had never seen so many varieties of this beautiful flower, nor seen them grow with such vigor. The whole town was scented and love was in the air and in my heart.
This past Friday I gave a workshop in my studio and next time I will get the backdrop area situated to take photographs of the beautiful work the participants did in the Spring Pin Frog Workshop. Because the kind of blossoming I love most is what women do as they come back to practice time and time again. Opening up like the flowers themselves, gaining confidence, having a voice. Its good to record that evolution.
This was the demo arrangement that received the finishing touches after the workshop was over. Inevitably there are bits and pieces of flowers that ended up in the wire and jar caddy.
And finally there are leftover flower petals. It's a little like cooking; taking your leftover ingredients and thinking of different ways to use them.
Easter Pop-up at Ponsford Bakery!
Ponsford Place
(Bakery and Innovation Center) http://ponsfordsplace.com
This little bakery is close to my neighborhood off a heavily trafficked road. It's on an
inconspicuous side street that is still residential. It's unexpected
location adds to it's charm. This bakery sells light and flavorful whole wheat
and gluten free breads and pastries in the french tradition with a lot of
unexpected twists on ingredients and savory fillings such as : Crème of Nettle Mushroom with or WITHOUT Speck and Rancho Gordo Domingo Rojo and Vaquero Beans with Cumin, Shishito Peppers, & Potatoes. The chocolate croissant won me over by the complexity of it's flavor and generosity of dark chocolate, something I have to have quite often!
It's a destination bakery as people come
from afar for the Craig Ponsford and sister Elizabeth's baked goods. They use heritage
grains that are grown and milled locally along with other ingredients
sourced from our local farmer's market. Craig participates an International
competitions and has won the Gold medal at Coupe du
Monde de la Boulangerie in Paris. I was thrilled when he
said yes to a pop-up feeling a kindred sense of working on one's craft. I discovered in one of our brief conversations that we
both source from the same grower, Front Porch Farms https://fpfarm.com/ for for
some our flour/flowers.
In honor of Easter I came up with rustic Easter
tins that included a bouquet and a bag of Ponsford chocolates.
