Bouquets to Art 2012

Floral design by Pico Design,Pico Soriano with Ignacio Lopez,
based on Berkeley No. 3 (1954) by Richard Diebekorn or, as I like to think of it,
still life with law professor (Mark H. Greenberg).

The annual Bouquets to Art exhibition was at the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park this past week. It was amazing as always with over 150 floral designers participating (see a full list here).

There were a few things that really stood out to me, in terms of design. People seemed to move away from monotone designs and there was an explosion of color in high contrast compositions. Designers embraced painted leaves and flowers, dyed flowers, recycled materials, colored wire, and all kinds of props and bling. I saw several designs that used Gypsophila (Baby's Breath) in innovative ways, a filler flower that is often shunned (seen as the "dozen roses and baby's breath" bouquet that was popular a couple of generations ago). There were several arrangements that used glass tubes extensively as a design element, and some that were done in terrarium styles. Flowers were grouped by texture and color, and there were also many designs composed of several arrangements working together. People made great use of succulents, and found some that looked pretty exotic.

Floral design by Waterlily Pond Floral Design based on Ultramarine Stemmed Form with Orange
from the Persian series, by Dale Chihuly. The blue "shell" is made of painted palm leaves.

I wish I could remember the location of all of the designs in the photos shown in the slideshow embedded below. This is actually only a portion of the many outstanding designs in the exhibition. If you can't see the slideshow below, click here to see it on Flickr.