Art of Flower Arranging

 What fun to play with flowers! Here I am at the Arizona Federation of Garden Clubs Convention down in Phoenix last Sunday. As well as being a working artist here in Sedona , AZ., I love plants and flowers and joined our own SAGC here in Sedona a few years ago. I was fortunate enough to take a workshop with a Very well know flower designer, Brent Leech.  One of his first questions went something like  " How many of you just take your flowers from the grocery store  and  put them in a tall vase?" Ok. I have been guilty of that. I do often go outside and see if there are any interesting blooms in my garden to add, but not always. 

Brent does have an advantage over those of us who live up in Sedona, and other small towns in Arizona. He can go to the flower market in Phoenix, open to professionals and others. That is now on  my list of " must do" in My future. He  likes to work with the "Tropicals", those exotic flowers that grow in the tropics and are not readily available here in dry Arizona. Perhaps some local flower stores will sell them? Another thing to follow up on in my future.  

His goal was really to get us to think "out of the box" when making a design. Notice the other materials included here as well. There are large  leaves that can be folded; rolled; split; anything to add interest, or the branch that also adds support to the tall blooms. There are clever little bamboo pins to hide these methods of manipulation.

 Notice the difference in heights; the directions of  the blooms; the way the eye circles around the whole. A very low vase for a very tall arrangement. Even the little bamboo like stems we cut up and put on a copper wire , which flows out of the arrangement and keep us intrigued. Something mosslike is added to hide the "frog" or  foam, keeping the flowers in place. We all were doing the same arrangements, but there was always an individual interpretation. The Art involved in your next flower adventure! Comments?

When is a Bowl More than a Bowl?

Here I am inspired by flowers, once again. Spring is in the air and I love having blooms inside  as well as out . In my last blog , I shared how I made petals out of clay,  as a decorative touch on my porcelain bowl.
I had these beautiful orchid stems, plus a few other flowers I wanted to display. What to put them in?
I had an idea to make sort of an oriental arrangement, so that each individual bloom would be visible. To me this meant something rather low. 
 I know of the ancient form of flower arranging called Ikebana, which  I  used  as inspiration. They include: embracing the asymmetrical form; use of empty space as part of the composition; and harmony among the materials, container, and setting.  
I was perplexed on which container to use. 
As I looked around, I spied  this luscious, purple  bowl I had thrown. The color was perfect to reflect the orchids. I chose three pieces of  quartz from my garden to hold things in place, and bring balance. Often I use it for eating  my salad,  but doesn't  function  follow whatever form we choose?
So there was my answer. My bowl was more than just a bowl.