Late Summer

A few photos from a late summer arranging gig yesterday with Chickadee Hill Flowers. I love Emily's big arrangements. She always manages a shape you thought impossible to build with flowers. Every piece of material she applies is done with deliberate attention and starts with a thoughtful framework of greenery. At a glance it feels like you are experiencing something that fell from the most secret garden plot and right into the vase - if you you knew how much observance and experience it takes to create a piece so beautiful.

I got to make a large wreath with Darcy. We used Queen Anne's Lace, four different types of Eucalyptus, some blushing Sedum, Spruce branches, and spent Astilbe flower seed heads. It's great to create something with someone else. If you are carrying a heavy fridge with another person, you are not going to skimp on your efforts, but rather lift hard and consider your partner at every step! I grow so much when I work with other people.

The airy cabin space where we installed the large arrangement and wreath sat on a beautiful point of private land by the ocean. The water was a translucent milky green, a perfect swimming spot.

Chickadee Hill Time

↑ Private

I am learning so much at Chickadee Hill Flowers. The other day we arranged and installed flowers on a beautiful chuppah that Emily's dad made. The apple branches made everything extra lush and lovely. We also used Forsythia branches, Mountain Mint, Dahlias, Matricaria, Queen Anne's Lace, Cloud Larkspur, Peonies, and Baptisia greens. Beyond the material that she grows herself, Emily also sources from the incredible Sacred Bough Farm (definitely worth a follow on Instagram! @sacredbough).  The greenhouse feels especially exotic right now - the Sweetpeas that Emily started back in January are being cut down soon to make way for peppers. Until then I will continue to enjoy their incredible fragrance. I rolled my ankle and fell on my head once - It smelled like Sweetpeas in the room at the time. The smell of their blooms will always haunt me a little bit but I still love them all the same.

Chickadee Hill Flowers

Winter has got a lockjaw on the island right now and she is not letting go anytime soon. Winter reminds me of playing fetch with dog who won't give up her fetching stick. Once you do succeed in chucking her stick as far as you can, she brings it right back to you and refuses to give it up again. It takes so much effort to thrive during winter. The summer is short. Summer is salvation.

Gazing at these absolutely exquisite flower arrangements from my pal Chickadee Hill Flowers has been like medicine. Her work is beyond superb. Not only is she a brilliant artist, she also grows most of her materials (an appreciable task!). Maybe they will fill you with as much awe and hope as they have me. I can hardly remember what it feels like to have full sunshine beating down on my back as I turn warm fragrant soil with fork.
 

↑ by Wylde Photography

Here's a picture of all of us on a lunch break during one of our biggest flower arranging gigs of the summer. As tight as our schedule was, we still found time to have some lunch in the sunshine.

Aerial Fancies

      Aerial vantage points provide the oddest perspectives.  Once upon a time — I was standing tiptoes on a chair in the kitchen trying to reach a far-away basket of snacks.  Up on the chair, I discovered that the top of the fridge was caked with a fine layer of fudgy kitchen dust. It was the first time I noticed that our old blue and green oriental rug told a story about birds eating berries.

↑ Tulip Farm - Netherlands via True Activist

↑ Tulip Farms of Holland, photographer unknown

↑ "San Francisco Bay salt flats" by Michael Layefski

↑ "Potash evaporation ponds with blue dye near Moab, Utah..." by Kevin Beebe

↑ "Evaporation Ponds" by Jesse Varner

          In a roundabout way, we arrive back to tulips in Holland with my favorite duo of design - Charles and Ray Eames' Powers of Ten (1977). This amazing and a legendary little film, which profoundly ponders structure and scale, was based on the essay "Cosmic View" by Dutch scholar Kees Boeke.