Potter - The Flower Fix: Modern Arrangements for a Daily Dose of Nature

MODERN ARRANGEMENTS FOR A DAILY DOSE OF NATURE

ANNA POTTER

One arranges flowers as the spirit moves you; to obey some inner prompting to put this colour with that, to have brilliance here, line there, a sense of opulence in this place or sparseness in that; to suit your surroundings, your mood, the weather, the occasion. In a word, to do as you please, just as, if you could, you might paint a picture.

CONSTANCE SPRY

Arranging flowers was never part of the childhood dream. My original floral designs mostly consisted of destroying, pulling apart and inquisitive play. There were no dreams of skipping in fields with baskets of wildflowers, or stuffy flower shops with arrangements in peculiar triangles. Instead, my dreams were made of mud, dirt, snails and petals mushed to a pulp, of being so immersed in foliage that one is unsure where the earth ends and human begins. There was, however, always the plan to make art in whatever way, shape or form.

Swallows & Damsons was born out of that love for play, imagination and art; curiosity of wild things, and using ones hands to explore. After completing a degree in fine art, my friend got me a job in a local flower shop and that is when the realisation hit: a flower shop could be all those things. It could combine the childhood dream of digging in dirt along with the creative expression of design. Our tiny family shop, in the antiques quarter of Sheffield, opened in 2008, and since then every day holds a different story. Tales of kindness, sadness, grief, celebrations of life and love are our daily fuel, and of course the weather, theres always the weather.

Over the years my preferred style of arranging has shifted from using the flowers I like in the type of vessel I like, to a less controlled, flower-led approach. In this approach, attention is paid to the natural curves and bends of certain flowers that might be better suited somewhere I wouldnt have instinctively thought. This method of arranging has given me a new appreciation of flowers I wouldnt naturally choose to create with. Using such flowers in new and different ways, ways which reflect their natural qualities and the environment they are in, is powerful enough to change an opinion entirely.

This approach has made me realise that working with a natural product is an exercise in letting go of control. Giving in to which way a flower wants to face, how heavy a stem is and where it falls, or how long in full bloom one will remain before all its petals fall in a heap on the table. If something happens to a stem that you dont expect, or even if you make a mistake, by embracing this it can lead you somewhere you hadnt planned often somewhere better. The more controls you impose, the less creative the process becomes, and you can miss something new.

Influence is all around, especially if youre really looking. Not just a list of expensive ingredients from far-flung places, but the plants in the garden or overgrowing and obstructing a path on the daily commute; flowers, foliage and produce in your local florist or greengrocer. We spend so much of our time looking on a surface level at what others are doing, that we forget to look on a deeper level at the everyday extraordinary thats right in front of us.

I am most inspired by the seasons and whats in abundance at any given time; its in the rhythms of the natural world, to appreciate and use what you have plenty of. My creativity is inspired by unexpected seasonal imperfections where time- and weather-worn stems are noticed and showcased. Taking notes from nature and letting them apply to the bigger picture.

For me, the ideal mind frame for creating an arrangement is finding a place somewhere between chaos and order, where the wild rules and the only thing for you to do is pick out the tones in a room, position a vase or imagine a narrative. This nature-led approach is contrary to the fast, throw-away modern world of synthetic materials and forced straight stems of flowers, where bags of imperfect carrots are sold cheap in supermarkets and lines on faces are filled in. As my friend David said, As an imperfect species why on earth do we need to eat perfect carrots?

This book is an insight into my creative process: an electric combination of seasonal abundance, feeling and emotions, taking guidance from the physical spaces were in, colour and imagination. In my work, I aim to see the space as a whole and how flowers and foliage can add to that space, to highlight certain features or atmospheres, or to tell a story.

Play is of great value in this book. Having a go, experimenting, failure or success its more about the journey, the act of creating, than producing a perfect arrangement. The joy of flower arranging is in the gathering and selecting, the freedom of choices, and creating your own narratives for the spaces you are working in. I hope that the advice in these pages gives you the confidence and inspiration to follow your own intuition and use the projects as a template from which to make an arrangement that is uniquely your own, to follow nature in all of its infallible wisdom.

Anna Potter

Colour is an essential part of any flower arrangement, and the tones we use will be determined by a number of factors: the season, the space we are creating in and the overall effect that we want to create with the design. In this book, the projects are organised, not by season or type of arrangement, but flowing through colours. They showcase how colour can be used in a myriad of ways to create atmosphere and effect.

This organisation, combined with the mood boards interspersed throughout, encourages you to approach flower arranging from a place of storytelling and creating feeling, rather than designs to suit certain occasions. The projects in this book are designed to inspire and provoke thoughtfulness. None is quite as it seems on first glance there are layers of story waiting to be discovered through the placement of stems or incorporation of different objects.