Thinking Ahead to Art in Bloom at the MFA

(Flowers by the MFA staff on a Friday in January.)

Here's the assignment: Design a knockout vase arrangement -- one, two, or three -- to suit the new Sharf Visitor Center at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. What's the occasion? The MFA's Art in Bloom weekend, April 24 to 26, 2009. The space is long, low, and sleek. The colors off whites and greys. The lines boxy and sleek - sans clutter and surface decor, with the addition of massive circular columns behind and in front of the information desk.


Should the design follow the spare, linear qualities of the space, or break out with an organic burst of cherry blossoms, say, or magnolia? Should the vase itself be dark like the ones pictured above, and have intrinsic drama, or should it seem to disappear? Those child-sized vases in John Singer Sargent's painting The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit (1882) came to mind. Would something Asian and ornate add a delicious counterpoint to the clean lines of this 21st century design? It might, but practicality argues against. A tall clear glass cylinder, on the other hand, reasonably priced and elegant, would echo the columns. If filled with river rock, with flower petals scattered against the glass, it might harmonize with the ambiance, and stir thoughts of a peaceful garden.

Perhaps it comes down simply to what does the eye crave and the soul want from flowers? How to make a lasting statement in a space that argues against fuss? Or is that just what's needed? An architect I know says, yes, bring on the color and the intricacy. As yet, I have no solutions, only a vision slowly taking shape.

Learning to Love Glads

I hate to say it but gladiolas just did not cut it with me until recently. They reminded me of funerals – not that there’s anything intrinsically wrong with such occasions; we’ll all have one – but they cast a slur on gladiolas which made the flower seem dower and unapproachable. Such a long term association comes from my childhood exposure to glads (as my mother called them), when in dusty salmon or dirty white, only, they were to be seen lolling about in the background of the florists’ display windows on Madison Avenue, hovering like an uninvited guest.

But recently, my heart turned a corner with respect to gladiolas. I started to notice their dazzling colors (and sometimes duotones) at the Boston Flower Exchange. . No other flower outside of the rose comes in as many shades and hues: from soft mauve and scarlet to rust and claret to pale pink to dark pink to a pink-fringed white, to juicy orange, lemon, and lime. Clear, vivid, and seductive Given their palette and glorious stature, I started using gladiolas in designs destined for anything but a funeral parlor.

No longer merely the foil for other flowers, the gladiola is a stunner in its own right. You can use individual blossoms in low centerpieces, boutonnières, or corsages, or cut the stalks shorter to give the gladiolas more heft and presence in a contemporary glass or ceramic vase. A tall vase filled with gladiolas can look downright contemporary.

What changed my mind? A with-it young woman from Los Angeles who called to ask for seventy bright red gladiolas for her mother’s seventieth birthday, delivered in style. What fun I had that otherwise dreary mid-winter afternoon tying up long handsome bundles of gladiolas in cello with chartreuse ribbon.

So now I have a different take on that quintessentially 1950s flower. Let me tell you why: They have drama, they have scale; they have longevity and affordability on their side. Two dozen glads fanning out horizontally and in an upward spread can transform a space.

Nesmith House in Lowell - An Historic and Intimate Venue

Just perfect for a small wedding, bridal shower, rehearsal dinner, or party


I visited the historic, 22-room Nesmith House in Lowell for the first time this spring. What a splendid place it is. Like all old homes, it has its stories, and an irresistible sense of romance and mystery.

This Greek Revival 1850’s mansion sits atop a hill in the Bellevidere district overlooking downtown Lowell and the Lowell Mills. What more fitting vista for its original owner, the industrialist and politically engaged John Nesmith.

The house, long neglected, was restored to vivid life in the mid 1990s when interior designers redid it, room by room – each to his or her own taste. If it’s a bit of a mélange of styles –ranging from period pieces, a few ornate ones original to the house, to art deco, with a lot of Victoriana along the way, somehow it all flows. In short, the house, like any beauty with good bones, wears its plumage well. From its graceful winding staircase and stained glass dome, to its overstuffed sofas and chairs, ornate rugs, wallpapers, paintings, and endless smaller treasures– the details and opulence beckon and delight. In addition, they urge: sit down, stay a while, have a sip of something cool or hot, depending on the weather, and enjoy the company.

The Nesmith House definitely deserves a visit and more than a passing thought as a venue for intimate occasions. Fifty guests can sit in comfort and style at small tables in the charming round dining room; for stand up affairs, the house can handle eighty. It has a large contemporary kitchen, incidentally – a caterer’s dream; and a way of making things look grand. While old-fashioned flowers like hydrangea and lilies, delphinium, stock, snapdragons, and roses fit right in, a clean arrangement of callas in dashing yellow, for example, or a sheaf of white gladiolas would make an attention-grabbing counterpoint. The flowers should simply make a statement in themselves.

What brought me to the Nesmith House? A late April shower for a June bride. The bride’s colors were pink and white with a soupcon of lime green; the look, to go with the house (and the bride’s favorite flowers): feminine and romantic.

For the entrance hall I used approximately two dozen pink Canterbury bells mingled with lime green viburnum and narrow ferns in a clear glass cylinder. The hall is elegant but not overpowering, and although Canterbury bells are delicate, en masse they stood up to some background busyness

For the bride’s table, a low arrangement of massive white hydrangea, a dozen light Orlando (pale pink) roses, French tulips (white with dark pink edges) and more viburnum created a cool, frothy focus. The colors echoed those of the room. Ferns lined the vase, a six-inch cylinder, to hide the flower stems and add another, watery texture. And for the buffet table, stargazer lilies, the bride’s favorite, along with roses and tulips in another tall cylinder.

What will bring me back for a second look? – Oh, the sheer pleasure of stepping across the threshold into another age. And a happy feeling about the place. The staff at Nesmith House appear to love this glorious building, the caterers that day, Two Chefs Are Better Than One, seemed at home, and the house, owned and used for visitors’ accommodations (it has some 11 bedrooms) by Middlesex Community College Foundation, had the well-kept feeling of a living museum.