Bloomin’ Creative
Where do your creative ideas come from? Have you had any lately? If not, maybe it’s because you’re too busy staring at that computer screen. Last week I left all that behind and treated myself to the intoxicating sights and scents of the Philadelphia Flower Show. After just a few hours there, it felt like my brain was literally exploding.
Albert Einstein said, “Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.”
I’ve depended on the flower show for my spring fix for the last 25 years. After nearly 60 inches of snow this winter, it was not a question of if I would go but rather, how fast could I get there.
Philadelphia hosts the world’s oldest indoor flower show, dating back to 1829.
That’s the year the organizers introduced the public to the Christmas Poinsettia and the Fall Chrysanthemum.
The theme of this year’s Flower Show was ARTiculture: the combination of art and horticulture celebrating everyone from Michelangelo to Monet, Picasso to Pollock, and da Vinci to Dali.
Show designers collaborated with some of the nation’s greatest art museums to interpret great paintings. In the process, they created a10-acre living canvas of exquisite landscapes, gardens and floral arrangements.
Lest you think the show is just for little old ladies in comfortable shoes, think again.
The place was teeming with families taking advantage of the children’s programs.
A room full of butterflies and an aerial dance troop falling from the ceiling kept things hopping.
There were continuous live demonstration areas and you passed perfectly normal adults walking around with flower headpieces (known as “fascinators”) that they created themselves in a workshop that also included terrarium building.
I doubt the visitors in 1829 were saddling up to the bar in between smelling the roses but in the last few years the show has featured cocktails and food choices apart from the overpriced soft pretzels and hot dogs.
One of the show’s sponsors, Subaru, was giving discounts on car purchases and the Marketplace filled with vendors in the back end of the convention hall seemed to take up more space than the flower exhibits.
In other words, there was something for everyone. Good marketing.
I didn’t really walk away with any gardening ideas from this year’s exhibits.
But I was inspired by the spectacle all around me.
The floral interpretations were so bizarre that you had to look at them in a different way. This wasn’t about gardening. It was about creativity, unexpected connections and dazzling color.
But as we all know, creativity is very subjective.
One exhibit featured what could only be described as your (dead) winter garden. A landscape of dried-out beige stalks surrounding a beige bowl with a blue ceramic center.
It escapes me which classic piece of art this display was interpreting but my husband kept passing it and saying, “If I only had a match…”
If only. But the designer definitely got our attention and isn’t that what creativity is about?
Ideas – good and bad – come to us from many different places. Not all of them are usable but it’s important to keep sifting through them.
Many of them arrive via technology (much as I prefer to draw from nature).
Every week I receive hundreds of emails from photographers and designers trying to acquaint me with their work. I open every email. Every day.
You learn so much just by studying images.
It makes me more aware of trends in photography and design.
I notice color pairings I never considered before.
I’m exposed to subject matter and concepts that inspire my client work or solve a design problem.
But most of all, I’m intimidated and inspired by all the creativity that’s out there.
Surround yourself with beauty. And watch the ideas grow.
Anita Alvare (bio)/Alvare Associates/610-520-6140
Marketing, Creativity, Inspiration, Design, Philadelphia Flower Show
