Most floral designers don’t get to choose what they make. They’re given colors and specific ideas to adhere to. For these five local designers, their only direction was a single painting.
“Beautiful Land,” opened Sept. 6 and features several works from Kim Uchiyama and Ken Buhler. Both painters were inspired by the “sensory experience[s] in the natural world,” Buhler said. This past weekend, five floral arrangements inspired by those paintings were displayed in a special event called “In Full Bloom.”
Anderson Gallery Director Lilah Anderson chose five floral designers for this event, each of them representing a local business: Irene’s Flowers, PepperHarrow Farms, the Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden, Something Chic Floral and Wildflower.
“When I was planning for [In Full Bloom], I was interested in having something that related to plants or landscape,” Anderson said. “I thought it would be a nice show to have [floral] designers.”
The idea was also inspired by her love for nature.
“I’m a plant lover. I’m a flower lover,” Anderson said. “So personally, it [was] exciting to see what the designers [came] up with. I [thought] that this event [would] draw a different audience than we might get for just [a] reception or an artist talk. That is something that I’m looking forward to, trying to get some other kind of new audience into the space.”
Each designer was given two to three paintings to base their arrangements on. Two designers chose an Uchiyama painting and three chose a Buhler painting. It was a fresh challenge for these floral designers.
“There’s few opportunities where you get to create floral arrangements and people don’t ask for anything really specific,” said Aubrey Roth, a floral designer from the Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden. “I really want to thank the botanical garden for asking me to do it.”
Roth chose one of the pieces in Buhler’s Faithful Compass series. In that series, Buhler is experimenting with marbling paper. All of the flowers in her arrangement grew in the Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden.
“The center of the drawing, where the marbling is, looked exactly like a plant that I knew I had seen before, but I didn’t know where,” Roth said. “I actually walked around the Botanical Garden until I found it, because I knew I had seen it. It’s actually growing near the center of the dome.”
Nanci Griffin, a floral designer from Wildflower, chose “Dark Sky” by Buhler to base an arrangement on. She used to be a painter before she joined Wildflower, so her past experience gave her a different perspective.
“I love, you know, how artists interpret nature differently,” Griffin said. “[Buhler’s] painting, how some people would interpret that underwater, but maybe he intended it to be a night sky. I just like how people can interpret it however you want.”
When creating the arrangement, her main inspiration was Buhler’s use of color.
“I kind of wanted to keep the colors very similar,” Griffin said. “I like to do groups of color. I’ll do the blue, [then] it’ll go green. Then in the back, there’s more blue. I put the purple in to accent it. I used some pompous grass, which is like peacock blue. I thought the blue went really well with the painting because it has some unusual blues in it, and there aren’t a lot of flowers that color.”
Uchiyama and Buhler have their own distinct art styles. While Uchiyama’s work appears very linear and minimalistic, Buhler’s is almost the opposite with explosions of color and unique mediums. The floral designers mimicked this, with Irene’s Flowers repeating Uchiyama’s linear style and color choice. In Roth’s arrangement, she used pinks, blues and greens to mimic Buhler’s chaotic style.
“It [was] interesting to see how they respond[ed],” Anderson said. “I [thought] the designs that are based off of [Buhler]’s work versus [Uchiyama]’s work [would] have different feelings.”
Preparation for this event, and all events at the Anderson Gallery, was centered around bringing the community around Drake University together, said Anderson.
“I feel like it’s important to emphasize that the gallery is a community space for students, faculty, staff and also people living in Des Moines,” Anderson said. “I think what’s joyful about it for me is creating a community space, making sure the gallery feels that way.”
“Beautiful Land” will remain open until Oct. 20. During the exhibit’s run, the Anderson Gallery will host a poetry night run by Anderson and Provost Sue Mattison Oct. 8 from 6 to 7 p.m.. It will feature two local poets, and all attendees are encouraged to bring their own poems to showcase.
For more coverage of “Beautiful Land,” refer to previous stories.
