You know, there really are no songs about Thursday are there? And there should be because it's a very good day of the week. It's an easy-street sort of day. Extra coffee break sort of day. Watch a few extra you-tube videos of Tina Marie sort of day. The quality of the light is different, and especially lovely in the late afternoon. And then there's Thursday nights, with it's potential for $6.50 movies at the Cobble Hill cinema, or pizza and a bottle of wine.
And then maybe there will be flowers the next day; Friday... delivered right to your cubicle. A lovely coda inserted after your lunch break. Co-workers green with envy. You won't be able to concentrate for the rest of the day, not with that anemone staring at you. Good thing it's almost the weekend.

Comment to win the drawing and good luck.

[An Hoang New Territory, 2010 oil on canvas 11x14 inches]

I love my friend An's new work (and new blog). The painting above inspires me to make a coral and lavender floral piece. And I will use these incredible Japanese pincushion flowers...

for lloyd

...whose yard I snapped this twig out of 2 weeks ago. i'll come clean for you, it wasn't the first time i shoplifted from another's garden. because i'm so street

now this twig is full bloom in my kitchen; a january miracle.
now is the time to force your forsythia lloyd
i can teach you.

Made this arrangement yesterday for an artist celebrating his exhibition closing and his 30th birthday. Sounds fun, doesn't it?

I was an artist once. I had a show in college. It was really --- how should I put this...emotionally charged. I don't think I even have the slides of my work anymore. I bought a yellow leather jacket to wear.

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Katie lucky number 44 won the flowers yesterday.

giving you something you can feel (FFF)

Maybe you know the drill of free flower friday by now? Comment to win flowers delivered tomorrow. I made this arrangement yesterday morning for a delivery, and fell hard for this color combination of burnt orange and lavender. Gonna do the same but better for you if you win...



So much going on here. Most exciting is that yesterday I got to meet the Studio Choo girls; Jill and Alethea. We spent the day eating, comparing notes and trucking around Brooklyn. They are kindered spirits and I feel like I have new friends which is nice...



Also very rad: Nicolette and I are collaborating with the New York Botanical Gardens on some spring classes which I really shouldn't say details about but am just giddy for because they are going to be garden oriented (some of them) and...ok I have to zip that for now....



Eric and I are heading to Canada on Monday to see my Mummo and camp out at the cottage for a few days. Take a sauna everyday and make long trails with Nea. I have a lot of feelings lately, and I guess I am needing some time away to consider some things that have been on my mind...

LOTS OF TIMES I'D LIKE TO SAY WHAT I FEEL OUT LOUD

But right now I'm pretty happy looking at these pictures from yesterday. Why haven't you commented yet? I'll quit rambling so you can get to it...good luck...

excerpt

The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields... a book I've been looking all over the apartment for...weeks now. Eric finally found it last night of course right in the middle of a crammed bookshelf. I read this passage to him, loosing all semblance of composure at the last few lines. Perhaps I needed a good cry, it had been a while.


Ottawa, April 6, 1955

My dear,

Time is short. Dr. Shortcilffe says it will be a matter of days, doesn't he? This is not, of course, what he tells me, but what I overheard him saying to you last night, whispering in the corridor, after I was moved to the General. My hearing has remained oddly acute. My mind, while less acute, is at ease about financial resources for you and for the children. The house, of course is secured - for I feel sure you would be reluctant to leave familiar surroundings, particularly your garden - and there are sufficient funds as you know for the children's education.

But you will want money for travel - why is it we have not traveled, you and I? - and for small luxuries, and it has occurred to me that you might wish to offer for sale my lady's-slipper collection. I am certain it will bring a good price. I suggest you contact Dr. Leonard Lemay of Boston University whose address is in my pocket diary. I expect you will sigh as you read this suggestion, since I know well that Cypripedium is not a genus you admire, particularly the species reginade and acaule. You will remember how we quarreled - our only quarrel, as far as I can recall - over the repugnance you felt for the lady's-slipper's morphology, its long, gloomy (as you claimed) stem and pouch-shaped lip which you declared to be grotesque. I pointed out, not that I needed to, the lip's functional cunning, that an insect might enter therein easily but escape only with difficulty. Well, so our discussions have run over these many years, my pedagogical voice pressing heavily on all that was light and fanciful. I sigh, myself, setting these words down, mourning the waste of words that passed between us, and the thought of what we might have addressed had we been more forthright - did you ever feel this, my love, our marginal discourse and what it must have displaced?

The memory of our "lady's slippers" discussion has, of course, led me into wondering whether you perhaps viewed our marriage in a similar way, as a trap from which there was no easy exit. I have sometimes wondered whether is was the disparity of our ages that made the word seem foolish or else something stiff and shy in our natures that forbade its utterance. This I regret. I would like to think that our children will use the word extravagantly and moreover that they will be open to its forces...

Do you remember that day last October when I experienced my first terrible headache? I found you in the kitchen wearing one of those new and dreadful plastic aprons. You put your arms around me at once and reached up to smooth my temples. I loved you terribly at that moment. The crackling of your apron against my body seemed like an operatic response to the longings which even then I felt. It was like something whispering at us to hurry, to stop wasting time, and I would like to have danced with you through the back door, out into the garden, down the street, over the line of the horizon. Oh, my dear. I thought we would have more time.

Your loving
Barker

portrait of peach and nea contemplating the meaning of existence

The Hellcat

I stumbled upon a great account of Mary Lincoln this morning, and the images above [NYTimes via Library of Congress]. I want to do a project on body corsages and love how her corsage drips down the bodice of her gown...apparently Mary was quite a pip.

now.
that.
we.
found.
love.
whadare we gonna do...
with it?

Above are pictures of a city hall bouquet from this morning.
We are listening to 181.fm Star 90's radio tonight in the studio.
There is no shame anymore. There just isn't.
Isn't that a welcome relief.

what are we going to do with this love?

free flowers for friday

Leave a comment to win a free flower arrangement delivered to you in Manhattan or Brooklyn tomorrow.
Eric - ever the stickler for details - would like me to tell you that the flowers pictured above are not an exact representation of what the giveaway arrangement will look like. But trust it'll look good. Better than good in fact.

clearly procrastinating

if i am taking the time to leisurely photoshop pictures of my friends and employees, what is it I'm not working on?

been listening to this on repeat thanks to aaron

.
.
.
.
.

did you click the link? do you not trust me? do we need to talk???
TRUST AND OBEY
meanwhile... i'll keep holding on...

quiet days

I had a dream that I was helping Ariella at her house. She was leaving on a train trip and prepared for me all sorts of notes and instructions in a packet. As soon as she left I tore open the package, and there were many letters I was suppose to deliver for her, including a letter addressed to me. But the letter was blank so I set it on fire. She had written on the paper in oil - all her flower secrets - and as the fire consumed the paper I could read them, but only for a second before they were gone. Burned up.

Considering throwing all caution to the wind and sacrificing my favorite angel wing begonia to bouquet making.

Making soap.

Taking a lot of long walks.

Orchids running amuck around here - what with the class on Sunday, and with all winter flowers generally sucking this month. The flower market is bear! Desolate! Time to be creative with what god gives us in winter; greenhouses in Miami
Thank you Barbara!

*Top arrangement goes to Lauran winner of this weeks Just Because Initiative. Those orchids should last her 2-3 weeks after all the other flowers perish. Longevity is one of the orchid's great attributes.

Free Flower Friday

Hot off the press!
This just in!
Flowers on the hoof!
911 Alert!
Going out the door!
Flying off the shelves!
Get them while you can!
Limited time offer!
Red-Hot deal!
Now you see em now you don't...

Leave a comment to win flowers delivered to your door (in Manhattan or Queens) tomorrow by yours truly...

I've had the studio to myself a lot over the holidays. And I thrive on time alone. I suppose in the end I do miss my girls, (and trust I can't wait to whip them back into shape when they return next week) but for now I like to simmer around the studio, project to project. Play my Kate Bush on repeat, dance with my reflection in the empty cooler and gorge myself on spiced pecans.



Nea's a pretty good companion for this sort of afternoon. If anyone wanders by and jangles the door to see if we're around she howls like a wolf at the moon. Makes the crazy eyes at strangers peering under the half-rolled up gate.

'at a girl!
toss her a nut, and go back to my tinkering.

WOW

all three of our California classes sold out in less than a day!
I can't wait to meet all of you crazy kids. in the sunshine.

next year in Paris?
__

*There's been a lot of hooting and hollering for a second San Fransisco class. I'll work on Nikki and see if I can get her to agree...

Above: Some dramatic ranunculus starting to arrive this now that we're getting on into winter.
Below: From last spring at the garden, a piece of Syringa Patula, a manchurian variety of lilac called "Ms. Kim."

past and present. this branch will likely bloom again this year and i will try to find it.

learning curves

As I've been sorting through and attempting to catalog the 10,827 images in my iPhoto from 2010 I came across this picture of white bleeding hearts from March.

I reminded me so acutely of a dream I had last night that I had forgotten. In the dream I had gotten off a city bus in a rotten mood. As I was walking home, Nea ran up to me and her legs were broken because she had run so hard chasing the bus I was on. Somehow we continued on together. On our way up a very familiar street I noticed all these giant multi-colored bleeding hearts growing on the side of the road. They were enormous like marshmallows! It was like I was in flower land in a Mario Bros. game. It was the jackpot dream!!! I picked armloads of them.

Wow, I'm so happy I just remembered that.

Anyways, I have been thinking about what to write to sum up the year, and haven't come up with anything great yet. So I'll just ramble a bit before today slides into tomorrow, January 2nd and all the heat that drives reflections and resolutions starts to dissipate....

We made flowers for 74 weddings in 2010! Some were city hall bouquets, others were grand productions requiring a staff of ten. I couldn't choose which I like better (though my bookkeeper might). I will tell you I learned a lot about flowers, a lot about business. Learned how to be a boss. Learned how to start taking my work a little bit more seriously sometimes, and learned to take the small quibs and quabbles along the way a lot less seriously.

Learned a lot about what types of jobs I want to do, and what types I don't. Learned I don't want to work in carpeted ballrooms anymore, or in the hottest weeks of July and August. I do want to work on more small backyard weddings. I do want to grow zinnias and celosias, and forage more of the material we use in the studio. I want to find a way to compost our flower waste. I want to make serious time for myself to take care of myself. And by take care of myself I mean get a massage. Every week. I would like to make flowers for an event at The New York Public Library. And...I would like to have more time to pay attention to soap; the workhorse, the backbone of this little business.

I have so much to learn still and so much flower research to keep up with. Hellebore festivals to attend. Primroses to source. And I still need to share with you our search for the Icelandic poppy! In order to make room for all these things in 2011, I'm cutting back our wedding/events schedule dramatically*. Not sure how we're going to make the paper that keeps payroll going but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

Get ready because you haven't seen anything yet..

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*Going to keep the Just Because Initiative running every Thursday though because it's just too much fun. I've taken a few weeks off around the holidays, but I'll be posting the first flower giveaway of the year this Thursday, January 6th. In the hopes that Marky Mark will enter, win and answer the door shirtless when we deliver his flowers.