Ikebana: The Art of flower arranging or the Way of the Flower

Flowers represent the highest and purest expression of Nature.

Since I could hold a crayon, I knew I wanted to be an artist. At the tender age of 3, colors, textures, patterns, nature, and the garden became my life’s inspiration as an artist.

In the summer of 1986, I found a camera.

A year later, I enrolled in the Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild after-school program for photography. My photography instructor…….magician, really, introduced me to the magic that is photography. I was hooked. I took every opportunity to learn as much as I could about photography.

After graduating from the Maryland Institute College of Art, I picked up a job as a wedding photographer. Every weekend I was surrounded by flowers…..and they were talking to me!

It was during those years photographing weddings, that the Way of the Flower began to develop in my mind.

In 2002, I moved to Connecticut to be closer to my sister and my future husband. As the years unfolded in Connecticut, working in the Arts became a main focus, opening a frame shop and gallery. Exposed to a wide variety of Art, Art History, and the vast community of artists in the area.

Then in 2017, a pivotal moment presented itself. As Ansel Adams often quoted, Louis Pasteur, “Chance favors only the prepared mind.”

I was commissioned to create a ‘garden wall’, it was at that moment, that I lived and breathed ‘the Way of the Flower’. Since then I have become devoted to Flowers and the Joy they bring myself & others through Art!