Through the Gates: The Art of Preservation & Regeneration
IN THIS EPISODE
We pick up where we left off: at the gates of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Auldbrass. As we cross that threshold, we’ll delve into the floral designer’s techniques on preserving flowers and its history from ancient Egyptian rituals, the Japanese art of Oshibana, Emily Dickinson’s pressed flower collection, to Frank Lloyd Wright’s inspiration for his take on the southern plantation.
ANCIENT FUNERALS TO VALENTINE’S DAY
A common criticism of buying fresh flowers is their fleeting nature. Nothing lasts forever, but this seems to be a point of contention for some prospective floral customers.Finding methods that buy us time and preserve the initial beauty and brightness is an integral part of being a floral designer. As it turns out, it’s also an integral part of being human. We are all working to preserve something.
For thousands of years, we have developed techniques of preservation. Ancient Egyptains demonstrated this in preserving the memory of a loved one entering the afterlife and with the flowers that adorn the loved one’s crypt. Both lives are intrinsically tied to the spiritual. Flowers have a way of mystifying us.
For a closer look at the process of drying flowers and its origin, head over to:
Mystified also describes my impression when I crossed through the gates of Auldbrass. I had left you along those winding, alligator-infested roads in South Carolina’s Lowcountry and now we’re back. The whole place had a feeling you had walked into the Twilight Zone: from the cryptic name, Auldbrass, to the peculiar setting. The impossibly green lawn dotted with enclosures of retired zoo animals and a house resembling a Samurai’s helmet. We explore the house and property and learn its own history of preservation. We also learn what inspired Wright’s designs.
For your own glimpse into Auldbrass and Wright’s influences, check out these links:
SCIWAY. South Carolina Plantations: Auldbrass Plantation - Yemassee - Beaufort County
Through this exploration we also learn how the things that influence us play into the act of preservation. We gather and forage for the things that strike us—a rose in perfect bloom of the design from another culture—and we can repurpose and reshape them. Not only did Frank Lloyd Wright do this but so did 16th-century Japanese Samurai warriors. So did upper-class women of Victorian-era England. Even Emily Dickinson reshaped fresh flowers into an herbarium just as she had reshaped language into poetry.
Explore the varying artforms and silica gel preservation technique at these sites:
Despite the delicacy and nuance of these artistic floral designs and techniques, there are challenges in preservation. A dried bloom ultimately falls apart. Frank Lloyd Wright’s southern structure battled the natural elements as much as they inspired them. It seemed Auldbrass would never be finished in the architect’s lifetime.
Sometimes our efforts to preserve are not enough. Flowers die. Our creations are lost to time and nature. But despite the sense of futility or inevitability, we still try to hang on. We discover another force of nature that ties us to flowers.
You can find other articles and sources used for this episode:
You can also follow along with other WORDS, FLOWERS, and ART projects through this website and @gathered_storiedbotanicals on Instagram if you’d like more flowers in your life. I hope you’ll tune in next time. Thank you for listening!
