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| BREAKING VASES IS an occupational hazard for florists, but for Wagner Kreusch it’s also a source of inspiration. The Brazilian-born, London-based botanical artist collects ceramics from makers around the world and when one of them accidentally slips through his fingers, he saves the fragments, reconfiguring the shards on the floor of his studio to look like the vessel has just toppled over, and arranges flowers (he prefers wild flora such as amaranth and mimosa) amid the chaos. Most recently, Kreusch, a certified ikebana instructor, transplanted a cluster of foraged roadside marigolds, root systems intact, and placed them amid a half-smashed terra-cotta garden pot he found at a market in Porto, Portugal. “They looked like they broke the vase to free themselves,” he says of the unruly cluster of yellow blooms. “I try to tap into this idea that everything is ephemeral, and everything returns to the earth.” | BREAKING VASES IS an occupational hazard for florists, but for Wagner Kreusch it’s also a source of inspiration. The Brazilian-born, London-based botanical artist collects ceramics from makers around the world and when one of them accidentally slips through his fingers, he saves the fragments, reconfiguring the shards on the floor of his studio to look like the vessel has just toppled over, and arranges flowers (he prefers wild flora such as amaranth and mimosa) amid the chaos. Most recently, Kreusch, a certified ikebana instructor, transplanted a cluster of foraged roadside marigolds, root systems intact, and placed them amid a half-smashed terra-cotta garden pot he found at a market in Porto, Portugal. “They looked like they broke the vase to free themselves,” he says of the unruly cluster of yellow blooms. “I try to tap into this idea that everything is ephemeral, and everything returns to the earth.” |
| Floral artists have been forgoing the traditional vase-based arrangement for some time — these days, you’re as likely to see constructions sprouting from the walls or hanging from the ceiling — but recently, the most adventurous designers have looked to the ground. The gravitational pull is both literal and metaphorical; by building on the floor, they’re at once returning flowers to the earth (if only symbolically) and repositioning a flower arrangement’s hierarchy in a given room — these are designs that demand space, that shift the balance of focus from the mantel or dining room table, that make life a little inconvenient for the occupants. | Floral artists have been forgoing the traditional vase-based arrangement for some time — these days, you’re as likely to see constructions sprouting from the walls or hanging from the ceiling — but recently, the most adventurous designers have looked to the ground. The gravitational pull is both literal and metaphorical; by building on the floor, they’re at once returning flowers to the earth (if only symbolically) and repositioning a flower arrangement’s hierarchy in a given room — these are designs that demand space, that shift the balance of focus from the mantel or dining room table, that make life a little inconvenient for the occupants. |
| The Parisian florist Louis-Géraud Castor, 47, whose striking sculptural bouquets are favored by clients like the brand Gabriela Hearst, recently arranged the flowers for a cocktail party in the 10th Arrondissement for some particularly open-minded patrons. In the entryway of the hôtel particulier, on niches that formerly held Barbedienne sculptures, he positioned a heart-shaped black philodendron leaf; from it cascaded hundreds of skinny brown roots, spilling across the floor like hair. Guests were forced to maneuver around the arrangement to enter the soiree. (“They are German,” says Castor of the hosts. “They appreciate things that are strange.”) | |
| Clément Bouteille, a 28-year-old florist and flower farmer based between the French countryside and Paris who has worked with Castor, created a similarly grounded arrangement for a wedding in Lyon, mixing dark green phoenix palms with spiky orange kniphofia ‘Lemon Popsicle’ flowers and branches from a ginkgo. The tree’s leaves blanketed the floor, creating a trail of fan-shaped confetti that echoed the ginkgo’s famously deciduous nature. “I love when an arrangement isn’t fixed,” says Bouteille, who sources much of his materials from his family’s farm in Saint-Maurice-sur-Dargoire in southeastern France. “Where it is living and moving in some way, giving a little more than what’s in the vase.” |