This article is part of our latest article Special section designabout spaces inspired by nature.
When I was delivered a white orchid at a recent flower arrangement workshop at the Museum of Art and Design in New York, my first impulse was to carefully bring it home, where I could myself put it in the jar and appreciate. It blooms for as long as possible. Instead, it looked like we wanted to pull these precious beauties through the paint.
Fourteen of us attended the two-hour class, including a floral designer who had flown in from Nashville and a florist who had driven five hours from New Hampshire. A local art director went to various times to secure a spot: After being told the class was sold out, she burst into tears, then nervously emailed a staff member museum until she is admitted.
There are also those who are just looking for something fun to do on a spring evening. But the few people who actually joined gung-ho helped give the class the optimistic feel of a fan club.
The object of attention and affection, is our instructor, Los Angeles botanist Kristen Alpaugh – she of the HBO Max reality show “Full bloomAnd over 39,000 followers on Instagram. Ms. Alpaugh is the first of six artists the museum, known as MAD, has tapped for “Flower Craft Exhibition”. The remaining five will then take turns occupying the second-floor gallery for a week and teaching a workshop in an adjoining space where they can share their own floral views.
That has become apparent to Mrs. Alpaugh, which sometimes involves putting her own spin on nature.
For her installations, she creates large-scale, eye-catching pieces with dried lotus leaves, stained grasses and anthuriums shining with iridescent paint. She applied sap to the luxuriant branches, making the bark look like reptile skin. A puddle of water on the floor had sunflowers poking out of the tall grass, which were mechanically motorized to twitch.
“Nature speaks to me and I speak back,” she had told me the day before by phone. “It was a conversation.”
My classmates and I sat at tables covered with butcher paper. Each of us had a teal glazed ceramic vase with a green rubberized chicken wire to hold the flowers in place and a bucket of gerbera daisies, shimmering roses, sweet peas, and dandelions in one table. The color ranges from grapefruit to lavender.
As people started to arrange and cut branches with the florist scissors provided to us, 33-year-old Ms. Alpaugh, wearing olive overalls and leopard print sneakers, shared tips for the good. our interests, who are not in business. They include:
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Always cut branches on a 45 degree angle.
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Place the larger flowers in the center of the arrangement and the smaller flowers in the periphery.
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Change the water in the tank daily.
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There are no leaves under the water!
Each of us also had in our flower box an anthurium painted by Miss Alpaugh. Anthurium – striking tropical plant – is also known as flamingo, pigtail and, er, pecker on the plate. Miss Alpaugh liked them in part because their flat surfaces were great for drawing on.
Ms Alpaugh, who sells upgraded versions through her company, said: “I feel like they’re like a bullied flower. Haus of Stems, up to $40 a turn. “This thing is just who it is – why are we mocking it? If they have a public broadcaster, this is branding them. “
Ms. Alpaugh kept the anthurium technique close to her chest, but she was eager to show us how to draw orchids. She squeezed drops of acrylic paint from small plastic bottles into a trough filled with distilled water laden with carrageenan to paint, forming circles that expanded when it hit the solution, floating to the surface rather than immediately dissolving. ie. Using a plastic stirrer, she gently inverted her circles.
Then she dipped a branch of orchid, then she quickly soaked the flowers in cold water and held them up so we could see the marble petals.
So great, entered class.
To my right, a floral designer from Massachusetts, who sported a tattoo of peonies and jasmine vines on her arm, lunged at her orchids. The New Hampshire florist says she plans to use the technique for an upcoming shoot for bridal magazine.
To me – someone who is perfectly happy with a simple bouquet of tulips in a single color from the bodega in the corner – the orchids seem perfect on their own. Do they really need a makeover?
But to prepare for the workshop, I clicked on a few video tutorials on how to arrange flowers online and was amazed to see a professional quickly create a balanced composition before my eyes. And I was intrigued by Miss Alpaugh’s work – those are the carrot in one of her Instagram photos?
Other museums have organized flower events, sometimes bringing in artists to create works inspired by the paintings on their walls. But with “Flower Craft”, MAD is aiming directly for the attention of contemporary floral designers and their burgeoning inclinations.
This is one of those things that hasn’t been due, says Elissa Auther, MAD’s deputy director of curatorial affairs and program leader.
This may be due to the association of floristry with the depreciated traditional household sector and the female gender – certainly, with one exception, all panelists were women. Ms. Auther points out that people who practice it also tend to run businesses, adding what some might see as a sign of commercialism to their art. Botanical artists have long pushed the envelope in the field – back in 1930s England, Constance Spry used Swiss chard, kale and weeds in her arrangements – but this craft tend to operate under control.
Social media – especially Instagram, which focuses on visual content – seems to be changing that. Ms. Auther said she found all the artists for the show in the museum by scrolling through the Instagram feed of her “Flower Profession” co-curator Sarah Bedford, founder and director. one’s creation flower studio in Manhattan.
Instagram was crucial to Alpaugh’s success. Her post for her custom plant business, FLWR PSTL, caught the eye of singer Katy Perry, who had begun ordering arrangements for friends. Then Miss Perry ordered a tiered floral dress for her Music Video “Never Worn White”, in which she reveals that she is pregnant. Ms. Alpaugh went on to create a floral bikini for SZA to wear in the “Kiss Me More” video with Doja Cat. And she made Doja Cat’s Venus flytrap earrings for last year’s Billboard Music Awards.
Rebecca DePasquale, who drove from Norristown, Pa., for the workshop, was one of the floral designers there cheering for Ms. Alpaugh.
“Not everyone sees florists this way,” Ms. DePasquale said. “She is helping to present flowers as an artistic medium.”
So really, who am I to question Mrs. Alpaugh’s method when it comes to my orchids? At last, I not the one who starred in a museum show. Besides, I paid $250 for the workshop, and I think I might as well get my due.
The class was in an uproar as I grabbed a few jars of yellow and orange paint and hesitantly dripped a few drops into the chute. The results, while not as dramatic as Miss Alpaugh’s, are not bad either.
I cut my branches to size, threaded it into my arrangement and took my flowers out of the museum, feeling elated as if I had gone to a wedding and was told I could take it home. the hub from his desk.
When I woke up the next morning and saw my arrangement on the kitchen counter, it looked great. Peonies bloomed overnight. Anthurium trees glistened in the sun. The sweet bean has a wonderful aroma.
Did I prefer orchids in their natural state? Right. But they certainly won’t go with my colorful composition as well as the colorful drawings did.
