Eileen Johnson - The Art of Floral Arranging

I have always enjoyed entertaining, cooking for friends, welcoming people into my home, setting a table with fresh flowers.

In the fall of 2002, while thinking of ideas for having my own business, I happened to come across a small article in the New York Times about a school in Paris entitled Fly to Paris and Learn the Art of French Floral Arrangement. I had no idea that such schools existed and I was intrigued. I loved flowers, and I bought them on a regular basis; however, I never learned how to put them together with any real panache. Was this a skill that could be learned in a classroom the way you could learn to cook? And as much as I loved an excuse to visit Paris, didnt we have great florists in New York?

I had the germination of an ideawhy not have a school in New York where we could highlight the work of some of our great florists? We had cooking schools with famous chefs teaching in them, why not a flower school?

I soon found myself going to Paris and taking some classes under the tutelage of Christian Tortu, one of the most renowned florists in Europe. From the first class, I was hookedI had to bring the concept to New York.

Back in New York, the first florist I spoke with was Michael George, a florist well known for his modern, cutting edge style. He was quite taken with the idea. He had heard that the great choreographer and dancer George Balanchine set up the School of American Ballet because he felt that the most important thing an artist can do is teach, and thus ensure that his legacy would be preserved. Michael wanted to share his gifts with others.

We both decided that if I set up a school, it should only have the best designers we could find. The first teacher we brought on after Michael was Chris Giftos, who had been doing the flowers at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for thirty-three years and was planning to retire.

After Chris, I asked his protg, Remco Van Vliet, if he would teach for the school. He was followed by his brother and partner, Cas Trap. Subsequently, Charles Masson, Meredith Waga, and Felipe Sastre signed on to teach. I had a truly wonderful team.

What I loved about the school from the start was the enthusiasm of the teachers and the students when they were able to finish their creations and take them home. There wasand still isthe sense of I did that? when the arrangements would leave the school. The other thing I have loved about the school is that there is no set dogma. If you have six different teachers, you will get six different points of view on everything from the conditioning of flowers to the style of arranging. It is up to the students to choose the philosophy or method to which they wish to subscribe. And that makes our classes all the more lively and varied!

If we have accomplished one thing in setting up FlowerSchool New York, it is to make beautiful flowers less intimidating and more accessible to those people who love them and fall under their spell as I have.

Cas Trap and the Flower Market

It is still dark when the flowers are loaded onto the truck that will drive around to a number of high-end florists in Manhattan. The first light of dawn is just beginning to show in the sky. It is 5:30 in the morning on what turns out to be a glorious September day. Twenty-eighth Street is coming to life as the market opens up to the first buyers of the day.

This is where it all startswith the flowers, the selection, the abundance. Even if you were not limited by budget, you would have to make a choice. Having more flowers and more money to spend on them doesnt guarantee that you will have a better bouquet. What matters is having the eye to select, the ability to choose and to eliminate that which does not add to the composition.

Each one of our florists at FlowerSchool New York shops at this market on a regular basis. And Cas Trap, as the manager of the Dutch Flower Line, one of the major importers and wholesalers on the block, is there to help themsuggesting new hybrid roses, an interesting foliage imported from South Africa, peonies from New Zealand and while New York is deep in the doldrums of winter, precious lilies of the valley, exotic parrot tulips from Holland, and luscious calla lilies from Ecuador. All of these flowers arrive in boxes from Kennedy Airport where they have made the journey from field to cut product in as little as thirty hours.

Cas, a third generation florist from Holland, knows more about flowers than practically anyone in the market. He grew up making bouquets for his fathers flower shopsometimes as many as one hundred a day on a busy Saturdayand each one made in his hand. The customers would come in the shop with their own vases and buy a bouquet to put in them.

For us at FlowerSchool New York, Cas re-creates the Dutch Bouquet of his youth. This bouquet is similar to a Biedermeier Bouquet. According to some history books, it was created in Switzerland in the late 1800s. A Dutch bouquet can be made as large as your grip can get. Cas remembers having the honor of making a hand-tied bouquet for the Queen of the Netherlands, Queen Juliana, when she visited his hometown. The bouquet was quite largelarge enough to go with the Queens rather considerable frame.

The First Step, the Selection of Flowers

The flowers we chose for this bouquet were

10 stems of viburnum berries

20 stems of leucadendrum (safari sunset)