Cultivated: The Elements of Floral Style

Description

Cultivated: The Elements of Floral Style elevates floral design to fine art in this richly informative work on the principles of floral style. A charming and intelligent mentor, Christin Geall emboldens designers, gardeners, and entrepreneurs to think differently and deeply about their work with flowers as she draws upon the fine arts and historical sources, exploring Baroque music, the paintings of the Impressionists, or the work of floral innovators like Gertrude Jekyll and Constance Spry. Covering all aspects of floral design, including choosing plants to grow and arrange, selecting tools and vessels, balancing color and form, and even photographing and selling arrangements, Cultivated offers universal lessons for all levels of practitioners, budgets, and materials. Geall's stunning photographs of her own lush designs illustrate techniques for creating brilliant arrangements that spark the imagination

Christin Geall is a gardener, floral designer, photographer, writer, and teacher. Formally trained at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, Geall also holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in creative nonfiction. She writes for Gardenista, and travels widely to teach floral design and pursue her love of gardens and art.

"I love this book celebrating garden-grown, imperfect, shapely flowers in glorious, dynamic, fecund vases in the Dutch still life painting style. There are elm flowers here, banksia rose twirls, plums on the branch, coppery bracken fronds-a harvest of beautiful things, overlaying an impressive depth of research and authoritative advice on all the practical skills to know to become a good flower arranger." - Sarah Raven, flower grower and award-winning writer "Sumptuous, smart and illuminating, Cultivated: The Elements of Floral Style is at once floragorgeous and florapractical. Gardener, photographer and Kew-trained designer Christin Geall, florist-in-residence at estates from Cambo in Scotland to the venerable Chatsworth, has reinvented cut flower arrangements for the twenty-first century-and now she gives us lessons. Her sassy reflections, on topics from deep ecology to painting with flowers, are beautifully organized, richly informative, and fun-as Instagram followers of her sublime photographs already know. If botanical collage artist Mrs. Delany returned to earth craving just one book, I'd give her Cultivated: The Elements of Floral Style." - Molly Peacock, author of The Paper Garden: An Artist Begins Her Life's Work at 72 "What a delight, not only a jaw-droppingly beautiful feast for the eyes, but filled with practical advice, charming anecdotes, and reaffirming life lessons. This is a book to be cherished." - Sophie Conran, designer and creator of sophieconran.com "Christin Geall is the rare talent who has the eye of an artist, the pen of a poet, and the heart of a gardener. Cultivated brilliantly pairs Christin's honest, thought-provoking essays with breathtaking photographs of her exquisite floral designs. Drawing from history, art, theater, literature, and her own fascinating flower journey, she boils down otherwise intimidating design concepts and explains them in a way that is both informative and inspiring." - Erin Benzakein, author of Floret Farm's Cut Flower Garden