October 28, 2013

The journey continues.

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The past few weeks have been some of the most exciting, exhausting, creative, terrifying, reflective, soul-searching, and inspiring of my 31-year life so far.  Will that do? Enough said. Now look at some pictures.

No, just kidding, I have much to say, so much to ponder, both here and inside my own thoughts.

Much has happened at The Tenth Meadow since my last post 5 weeks ago.  We have been flat-out with some amazing events, part of the ebb and flow of our business: weddings, special dinners, floral installations. The season has started with a bang, we have been blessed with some incredible projects and clients (many of which I will share with you).

All the florals on this post are pics I took while preparing for an event at The Adelaide Town Hall, working alongside Georgeous and their formidably top-notch event styling. The brief: Romantic moody florals with an antique still-life theme. A palette of clarets and burgundies for a night that was all about the wines.

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A lot of the past few weeks has been about The Search. You know the one I mean, the one that we are all doing, the search for what matters in life, what excites us, what has meaning.  The search to find balance between creative or professional endeavour, putting food on the table, and having a life. 

When it rains it pours, and two momentous things have taken place this month for Tenth Meadow, squeezed in among the frantic day-to-day workings of our design studio. 1: we have opened a little shop in the CBD, and 2: we have expanded the flower beds at the farm this year, with over 8000 unusual and heirloom plants going into the ground. Both of these things have taken a lot of hard work, and nerves of steel, to bring into fruition. Both things have truly represented the transformation of dreams into reality. Both things have taken on lives of their own, full of unexpected changes, surprising developments, moments of both intense satisfaction and heartbreak in equal measure.

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The Tenth Meadow shop at 10 Compton Street is a work in progress.  Watch this space.  Here for a good time, maybe a long time.  I hate the phrase "pop-up", but you get the drift... We are testing the waters.  For a long time, I have wanted to bring a European style flower shop to Adelaide, the kind of place where I would want to go, to pick up some perfect bearded iris in a dark rust burgundy hue, some blousy local roses (the kind you have to steal over a fence because you just can't get them anywhere), copper hellebore pods, sweet peas with a true scent.  Interesting plants in interesting pots. A place full of greenery, dark dusty walls and big casement windows, hidden down a side street under a verandah.  Ah, to be in the backstreets of Paris.  Lucy and I are obsessed with 1996's "Bed of Roses" with Christian Slater.  He plays a florist. A hot, romantic florist.  With the most amazing shop and a hidden bachelor's roof garden that would make the hardest heart swoon. Watch that movie and you will understand better what we are banging on about.

In order for the shop to keep going it will need your support.  The same goes for anything good that happens in Adelaide.  The shop is SUCH hard work, it comes from a place of such genuine passion that we are eating, sleeping, breathing it.  I actually yelled at an old man who waltzed down the footpath and made a snarky remark about the shop's paint colour last week - I am strung out, and proudly defiant about what we are trying to do.

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Now, if you're still reading this, and haven't just skipped to the pictures: the flower farm.  More on this later, but just a heads-up that there will be a number of working bees happening at the farm over the next few weeks.  We will be exchanging plants, flowers and a mighty good luncheon spread for slave labour.  My friend Nat works in an office during the week. In his spare time he enjoys recreational digging (holes, garden beds, random digging needs).  If this sounds like you and you would like to get your hands dirty, get some exercise outside the gym and breath some fresh air, then keep an eye on facebook etc, or get in touch with me about the working bees.

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That's all for now.

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