Music: Vivaldi
TAM ASHWORTH: Yes welcome you gonna follow me in...
Tam Ashworth is the owner of and floral stylist at Isari Flower Studio.
TAM ASHWORTH: Every month we do a flower arranging class...
last month we had peony class, this month we're going to be doing floral vignettes.
Morgan Jenkins is the studio manager for Isari.
MORGAN JENKINS: If you have 3 smaller vases in your house and you want to make a floral
display you can do it, you don't have to have this big vase that's the whole idea of floral
vignettes.
TAM ASHWORTH: If you buy yourself some roses, you can probably put it in this medium size
container so that it's just a little something.
I'll do a white and a green in the taller and then I'll do more detail in the lower
but it can all be worked together....
I treat it as texture, color, everything has to all correlate and artfully goes together…
I went to school for interior decorating, I went to art school then I became a model
for a long time in Thailand and that was like the awakening of fashion senses and then coming
over to America I kind of tied everything all together with doing flowers, because that's
a little bit of art school and a little bit of fashion and that's what we're doing is
styling flowers, basically it's my medium…
It's pretty therapeutic.
Starting off my day with going to the flower market being surrounded by flowers that already
puts me in a good mood.
And it can do the same for others.
According to the American Horticultural Therapy Association people respond positively to green
plants and colorful flowers, Jenkins has a degree in horticulture.
MORGAN JENKINS: Horticulture therapy is a profession and it's also an idea that's practiced
in the industry.
It's for people to really reconnect with nature and for floral designers it's like left brain
development, that creative aspect of designing with flowers.
if you don't have a garden outside it's bringing the garden in...
It's working with those petals, it's being stimulated by colors, being stimulated by
textures and it's also a learning process too in horticulture therapy.
Next month's class promises to stimulate the additional senses of taste and smell.
MORGAN JENKINS: The culinary class is really going to be focused on edible flowers and
edible greens so you can think herbs you can think rosemary...
TAM ASHWORTH: So flowers that are like marigolds you can eat the petals of marigolds and then
we can also arrange marigolds into marigold bouquets.
Attendees will also get to sample floral inspired drinks.
MORGAN JENKINS: Everyone gets to come and they get to sip on floral inspired wine cocktail
or we can make lavendar lemonade.
Everything about Isari Flower Studio seems designed to please the senses, even the client
area.
TAM ASHWORTH: This is sort of like a consulting area, on the wall we've got some loops of
images playing with the weddings....
As you might expect, Isari does a lot of weddings.
But some are on a grand scale like a two-part ceremony that took place in India and Thailand
and involved both flowers and linens.
Ashworth's fashion background comes in handy too in determining trends.
TAM ASHWORTH: Whatever's on the runway in a year or two the flowers, everybody wants
that sort of color ways like last year was all purples, the rage of the purples, and
then this year is tons of corals, so we've had a lot of requests for bridesmaid dresses
in coral.
But Ashworth goes beyond just weddings.
TAM ASHWORTH: We were involved with Art Alive we interpret the pictures, a painting, with
flowers and we chose Dega.
It was one of the ballerinas... twirling with tulips and hyber delphiniums, it's a blue
arrangement with whites.
But her work mixes both artistry and practicality.
TAM ASHWORTH: When we do centerpieces for corporate groups they do not want scented
at all they want just color, bold colors, so they can serve wine and food and it won't
interfere with food.
In addition, Ashworth works with materials that have to be bought fresh each day and
have a limited shelf life.
But she insists she never tires of it.
TAM ASHWORTH: No I love moving through the seasons, I love the seasons.
It's lovely to get variety within a year…
These are lovely, these are kind of like herby, sweet, sometimes we have lavender in it.