The Big The Bold & The Beautiful

This bouquet was made for the current issue of New York Magazine Weddings. The features editor asked for bouquets made in primary colors, so here is my blue bouquet. Other spectrums will follow.

Delphinium, Monkshood, Passion vine and flowers, grasses, ferns and Scabbiossa pods.

Unbridled Rustic Bouquet

Left overs in the fridge don't stay there long. Today I rummaged through to make a nosegay with a nostalgic and rustic tone. Adding pale blue Scabbiossas, some dried barley from the studio and a few wild peas I had planted out back provided just the right notes that were missing to soften the Echeveria, Heather, Dusty Miller combination we visited in the last post. Copper, gold and gray satin ribbons were a nice counterpoint to the wild roses and magnolia leaves. Perhaps this could serve as the bouquet to the centerpiece whose parts we revisited or simply call it what it is, a well distilled reimagining. I quite like it and may suggest it to a bride I am working with. Hope she likes it as much as I do.

Bright As The Day

This weekend New Yorkers pretended Summer would never end. Skirts short and moods high. This sunny fall arrangement looks more like it wants to belong in the Spring pages. I'll just call it an "Indian Summer Fall Centerpiece". Who said Spring owned bright pinks? Our Dahlia begs to argue all luminescent in a melon pink that turns blue with the light.

Day For The Spirit

A delivery for a yearly luncheon took me out to the Hamptons Yesterday. I listened to stories about Steve Jobs for hours in traffic there and back and in between decided to drive to some of the local farms. There couldn't have been a brighter clearer day to wander aimlessly through the apple orchards and flower fields! It reminded me of how absolutely starved as a city dweller I am for nature. I can get completely lost in it for hours which I did delaying my visit to a dear friend further down the road in Amagansset.
I finally made it to her place where her perfect husband brought us the most delicious Chai lattes I've ever had. Then she drove me to the Hither Hills Sate Park. We trudged through a sage green smattering of lichen laden pines and made our way up to the top of the dunes. I felt like I was transposed to another part of the world. I imagined being in a desert except the perfect temperature immediately brought me back to an exquisite Montauk fall afternoon. Christine took funny hipstamatic portraits of us with her iphone as her ridiculously low maintenance baby napped in the Byorn sack and we mused on the patterns of the shadows cast by the grasses and exact colors of specific patches of green.
As I drove back into the hard wired city I was filled with gratitude for the healing beauty of nature and how much love it filled with me with. That may very well be why I make a living of working with it's perfect and imperfect products.

Another thing that really struck a chord in me as I drove back were these words,

"You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle."..........................................................Steve Jobs

RIP

Lil' Ol' Country Bukay

Here's a bouquet I arranged for Town and Country's latest Wedding's Issue on stands now :)
Always honored to be in their beautiful spreads!. This fine gal features the ever gratifying Juliette David Austin Garden roses surrounded by (this year's favored foliage) Dusty Miller, feathery dark Agonis leaves, Celosia Specata, Black Scabbiossa blossoms with their pods, Astilbe, Fuschias and Seeded Eucalyptus with foliage.