Floristic process is like a meditation, where you forget about existence of the surrounding world. While all is bustling around - work, kids etc, art is the only place where I can turn off my other self and dive into the creative process.
- Svetlana Pihlström, florist
For some time, I have been thinking of making a story about an artist's creative process. Inspired by my friend’s passion and following her artist account in social networks, I knew I want to capture her creative florist’s work on film.
Svetlana is one of those people I admire in life. Full of energy, always positive, a mom of three, sitting in two jobs, running all kind of kid’s hobbies and keeping her beautiful big house in order, she has found a room for something else. Several years ago, she discovered her passion in floristics and in the process of floral installations. She decided to pursue floristics education and participated in many special florists’ events, workshops and exhibitions globally. This year she successfully completed vocational qualification in floristics resulting in a certification from Keuda.
This is nothing to do with commercial floristics, this type of work is for my soul.
She is a pure example of person who loves. Fully devoted to the process she is practicing creativity with a help of floral mixtures, plants, wood, bark, grasses, glass tubes, metal lines and all those dozens of sophisticated floristic tools which I don’t even know the names for, except scissors.
We've fixed the shoot date after several postponed times as it wasn't easy to catch super busy woman with a free window. Finally, I arrived at her beautiful home near lake Bodom on a sunny summer evening. One could feel the floral spirit straight from the doorstep. All kind of fresh flowers and dried decorating plants surrounded outside and inside. I was naive to expect her to get ready for our photoshoot, instead she was fussing around the kitchen baking us a strawberry-rhubarb pie and her son was helping her. I laughed that she was all about it, multitasking and hospitable, busy and super positive.
For a moment I thought it was a mistake to have our photoshoot after her working day when the whole family just returned home. But it turned out the most natural pace of my talented friend's life, distracted by one million things on the way, somewhere in between work, family, home routines she performed a creative process which ended up in a stunning floral installation. We laughed and kept shooting, while kids one by one appeared in their sun-lit dining room with own agenda. She served everyone and continued the process with ease.
In fact, she wanted to make two installations but we never reached that far and agreed on some other day in the future to cover the second work. This time she chose to work on a floral wreath for which she prepared beforehand. She collected Typha leaves, sliced them and rolled with a straw mix around the frame. I wish my camera would witness that too, but Svetlana knows how to be time-efficient :) She attached glass tubes around the frame like if she would be a chemist daily running her lab tests. The water was added to the tubes and she started decorating them with tiny flowers mix. I was amazed how confidently she matched the flowers, how gently and fast she piled up each tube with beauty. The process was rather quick and I was whirling around trying not to miss every important moment.
What are my favourite flowers? Of course peonies!!
After the work was finished and I was capturing the fabulous artist work, her son appeared with another bunch of flowers and handed them to the mom, it was a lovely intimate moment to catch. Then we moved for the tea and pie outside in their garden surrounded with beautiful birches and with a breathtaking view on the endless grass field stretching out right from their yard. It was a nice warm summer eve; the sun was still high up and we could enjoy the tea and fantastic pie in the nature. For a moment I got her sitting without rushing anywhere, so we could chatter about things enjoying the evening beauty. As the kids and not-anymore-hungry husband were around, we thought to finish the photoshoot with a few family shots and I think it was a perfect ending of the artist story in her most authentic lifestyle. Because it wouldn't be the full story without these components.
