On August 4 the Organization of Floral Art Designers opened their 2022 annual symposium in San Francisco CA.  Five designers presented demonstrations and workshops and OFAD members staged cutting edge designs throughout the hotel.  

You can find more about Art Nouveau and see more designs in “My Adventures”  October 2020 and in July 2022

I was selected for the opening program with the theme “Art Nouveau—Designs Inspired by Nature.  Ten designs were created, each inspired by an artist or aspect of Art Nouveau.

William Morris was a precursor to Art Nouveau with the Arts and Crafts movement in UK.  His work used winding, sinuous lines within symmetrical forms.  My curving green vase held a winding structure of kiwi branches and blue wool forms with curving callas and ranunculus and jasmine vine.

Color in the Art Nouveau movement was soft and subdued.  Edith Wharton in “Decoration of Houses” suggests that cream, white, and slate are the best hues for décor.  A cream-colored board held vases wrapped in cream wool and an array of soft cream and pink flowers.  Later in the program the color palate was updated with bright flowers and painted anthurium blooms.

Innovations in the printing process brought posters into popularity and roles of women were changing.   Jane Avril, a dancer with entrepreneurial spirit., opened the Moulin Rouge theater which was promoted by the above Toulouse Lautrec poster.

The Moulin Rouge’s cancan dance is interpreted with a Harry Lauder branch rising from a wooden board and strips of purple paper wrapped into wire forms, bright orange dahlias, with accents of succulents and purple hydrangea complete the design.

The American dancer, Loie Fuller was famous for her “dance inspired by nature.”  A glass vase holds a hand-tied bouquet of folded variegated aspidistra, curving wheat, and explosion grass.  White anthurium arch from the bouquet.

The peacock motif was popular in the Art Nouveau and the newly redecorated Sanmartaine department store in Paris uses peacocks throughout its top floor.  A tall narrow vase holds a fan structure of green dogwood, blue midollino spirals, and peacock feathers with purple clematis, dahlia, and passion vine.

Art Nouveau in Austria included Gustav Klimt and the Successionist Movement.   Kilmt’s picture of The Kiss inspired a golden wire column with red dahlia, cympidium orchids, gold painted anthurium and circling gold spirals and vines.

Hotel Tassel in Belgium is an example of architecture in Art Nouveau with Victor Horta’s  curving, graceful lines in his staircase.  A metal stand holds a woven wire structure in winding, cascading lines with a monochromatic color palate of pinks.

At OFAD the presenters stage a series of workshops.  The morning following my demonstration, my workshop taught the woven wire technique that created the above cascade design.  Tubes are supported by twisted 12g aluminum wire and flowers placed in the tubes.  It may be used in horizontal form as above or winding into a cascade or spiral and may be used over again.

Many thanks to the OFAD board for my invitation to this exciting event, to Brenda Bingham, Tricia Stammberger, and Liza Weihman who came from all over the country to assist in my work, and to Bobette Fish for her photographs without which I would not have been able to share these thoughts with you.

Now it’s time to think about September and fall flowers to come…