Cultivated: The Elements of Floral Style (Hardcover)

Description

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Elevate your floral design to fine art in this richly informative work on the principles of floral style.

Floral designer, photographer, and teacher Christin Geall emboldens designers, gardeners, and entrepreneurs to think differently and deeply about their work with flowers and floral design, as she draws upon the fine arts and historical sources—whether 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 flowers and 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.

About the Author

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Christin Geall is a gardener, floral designer, photographer, writer, teacher, and owner of the floral studio Cultivated by Christin. She lives in Victoria, British Columbia, writes for Gardenista, and travels widely to teach floral design and pursue her love of gardens and art.

Praise For…

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"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

"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

"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

"Geall might just be the M.F.K. Fisher (American grande dame of food writing) of flowers.ÿCultivatedÿbeats with the heart of a sensualist. Her engaging, sometimes even poetic prose delivers both inspiration and advice on gathering plants and gearing up to create your own floral arrangements.ÿThis beautiful and imminently giftable hard-bound book is lavishly illustrated with floral arrangements created and photographed by the author. Geall is an artist who composes a moment from the garden in a vase, then captures it on film."
? Seattle Times

"Cultivatedÿoffers a fresh, thoughtful approach to arranging. Art and art history have influenced Geall, and she writes about how paintings can provide guidance about color, light, and movement."
? Flower Magazine

"Geall covers plants for a cutting garden or border, options in vessels and tools and considerations like texture, shape, color and gesture. Photographs of her own eye-popping arrangements round out the book, with detailed explanations of what went into each and why. Cultivated is an excellent guide to flower arranging for the home gardener."
– Horticulture

"Turn flower arranging into fine art, courtesy of Cultivated: The Elements of Floral Style! Christian Geall takes inspiration from influences such as Baroque music and Impressionist paintings in all aspects of floral design, from choosing plants to selecting vessels to display them."
– Crafts Beautiful (UK)

"Floral design is about using what you have to the best of your ability within your time constraints and the limitations of the plants before you. It’s about not knowing where you will end up, even with a mastery of colour theory and knowledge of fashion, form, and style. In her new book, Cultivated, Christin Geall teaches us not only how to arrange flowers but how to truly see them."
– New Zealand Home and Design

"In her verdant book, designer, writer and photographer Christin Geall speaks to the art of floral arranging—touching on everything from how floral color enhances a room to which flowers evoke a sense of place. Page after page of dramatic photographs are interwoven with insightful design principles drawn from international floral traditions, including expositions on embracing wabi-sabi, the Japanese appreciation of beauty in imperfection, and how to harness the fact that Western culture has conditioned people to read from left to right for maximum visual impact. Beyond the breathtaking photos are words both personal and pragmatic."
– Business of Home

"Cultivated provides the perfect guide to arranging and maintaining your blooms, and some gorgeous photos for inspiration."
– Popular Science