A fresh perspective of starting a floral career with the founder of Fox Fodder Farm

“I started working with flowers shortly after moving to New York on a whim. I wasn’t really sure what I was going to do with my career, but I was waitressing at a restaurant at the time, and I asked the florist who provided their flowers if I could help her out whenever she needed an extra pair of hands. I ended up shadowing her for a while, which led to me doing my own stuff, and it built from there.

Both my parents were big gardeners, so I grew up with what I thought to be a basic level of plant knowledge, but I quickly learned it was a lot more extensive than that because most people don’t know much (or anything!) about plants. I think that’s part of the reason why arranging flowers came so easily to me. It felt very second nature [Ed note: pun unintended].

Not only was I generally less confident than I am now when I first started, but I was also extremely focused on being “different.” I was obsessed with pushing boundaries and establishing myself as someone who was making things unlike anything or anyone else. As I’ve become more familiar with the industry, though, I’ve become more aware that nothing is born out of thin air, and everything–no matter how innovative–is connected to a precedent set before it, and that’s been very humbling. Now I’m less fixated on making my mark, so to speak, and more interested in letting the flowers speak for themselves. It’s as simple as recognizing that I work with flowers, flowers are beautiful, and I just want to do what I can to bring that experience to others.

My favorite flower design project I’ve ever worked on was a wedding at the St. Regis. We made these table-scapes with crazy arrangements of cherries and different fruits and flowers, and it looked like Marie Antoinette was hosting the party. The point was never to cultivate perfection–just to have fun, which is why the effect was so dynamic. It ties back to what I was saying before–as I’ve gotten older, I’m less interested in perfection and more interested in thinking about the experience that we’re creating for people and the relationship that they’re going to have, not with only the aesthetic we’re cultivating, but also the natural beauty of the flowers themselves. Like, are they going to pay attention?”  [continued….]

Read the full interview on ManRepeller