On Art and Creativity - For the Love of Flowers

For Kerin Greville, the love of flowers and plants is her passion, her creativity evident in her exquisite floral displays. Working from her home beside the Clive River in Hawke’s Bay, her floral artwork has an open aspect, the flowers are natural-looking, as they would be as if still growing in the garden, the plant forms speaking with simplicity and eloquence.

Her photographs of flowers in vases that she shares on Instagram as the Floraliste are eye-catching, always with an eclectic mix of blossoms, tendrils and colours of the season. In curious, cute and sometimes wonky homemade vases, she puts the flowers together with great delicacy, leaving spaces that a small bird could fly through - the arrangements are open and loose, the colours complement each other, imperfect and uncontrived. Each design is conceived like an artwork with attention given to the principles of composition, balance, movement and harmony - the eye has somewhere to move and somewhere to rest.

She will often create these beauties for her own joy and others’ pleasure. Her sources of inspiration are many and varied. Among them Shane Connolly, British floral artist and passionate advocate of sustainable floristry practice with his philosophy that “flowers in arrangements should look as they would in the garden, natural, rather open and unstructured.” Aquilegia or foxgloves in drifts, spires upright as they grow and not forced into contrived angles in a vase. 

Her dream was to become first and foremost a funeral florist, Kerin sought out floral teachers whose work she loved, attended workshop after workshop and one thing led to another; friend’s weddings and family funerals formed the foundation of her early business, boosted by many former students asking to flower their weddings.  Her interest in Connolly led in turn to Constance Spry, and like Spry, Kerin has recently begun designing and making ceramic vases in which to display her work. Her ‘wonky pots’ as she calls them are the perfect vessels for the imperfect flowers and bendy stems she loves. No stiff-stemmed gerberas for Kerin - they’re her least favourite flower.

The peaceful and gentle life of working in her garden, creating arrangements in the shed at home beside the tranquil Clive River has been a joyful experience.