Last April Nicolette and I took a few days to expand our creative minds a bit...away from the city and away from the ever present stream of studio shoulds. It's easy to forget to feed yourself something beautiful when you're busy feeding everyone else beauty. Little Flower School here reminding you that ya gotta eat, girls.
We had the run of a beautiful nineteenth century Italianate home in the hills above Sharon Springs, NY. It's owned by Michelle, a real estate agent in the area. She's selling it by the way. The asking price is (in her words) "a big bag of cash.' But I warn you, the heating costs are through the roof.
The ground up here in early April is slow to render, so we shopped the market downstate in the city for some goodies. The double petaled hellebores grown by Hautau are spectacular this time of year, as are their ranunculus. Fritillaria persica is always a stunner and makes any arrangement sing in Dutch. The sweet columbines we cut from nursery plants (the market ones shipped in from Holland are always smashed. Just can't ship that flower.
This break from the normal world of making flowers for weddings, corporate clients or magazine shoots is really necessary for us. To have time to play with flowers without any boundaries or someone art directing is a luxury I wish to afford myself more often. Otherwise I find I get stuck in a rut of routine, recipes, pleasing people.
Many thanks to Michelle for letting us use her incredible home, to Marietta and Asheley for indulging us with their beauty as our models, and to Jim, Roger and Chris for helping facilitate the project. We hope you enjoy the pictures. And we hope you remember to afford yourself a bit of time and space to leisurely enjoy your own flowering soon.
