Emily, Star of Belgium

I wrote this on the train travelling back from Belgium at the end of May earlier this year. 

I am sitting in the Eurostar in Brussels station. Bags are tucked away, I have my book on my lap for entertainment and my jacket because I’m bound to get too cold. The train back to London will take 2 hours and then I’ll take a couple of connections that will gradually take me back down to Sussex. Finally, a taxi will collect me from Uckfield train station and drop me home. Back to my husband, my children and the fields.

Behind me lays a week in Belgium. And I know I am going to cry as write this down, trying to gather up the moments in the week that have made such an impression and a way to try to keep the experience alive and fresh forever. Firstly, I will start with Emily. 

Emily’s reputation as a florist is international. (I’m putting my jacket on, it’s too cold). Like so many others, the images of her floral designs sang from the screen of my phone and I was hooked. Her designs are saturated with colour and emerge from the depths of a dark, seemingly endless, background. They have rightly been compared to Dutch Masters paintings. They are certainly modern masterpieces. What made the greatest impression on me from watching Emily create and hearing her process is the impact and power of detail. I will always remember her talking about the hairs on the individual seeds that make up the head of a single pulsatilla once the flowers have bloomed and passed, how there’s a plum coloured tone in there that you can see if you look closely. How - I thought - will that have any presence in a design where there are so many other stems? Who notices the colour of the hairs on the texture-full seed head when there are pansies, roses or nasturtiums to steal the glory? Whilst I’ve noticed details on stems like this before, particularly whilst gardening, I’ve always thought that allowing such a detail to be a considered and valuable part of a design to be indulgent and probably a waste of time. Who is going to notice these tiny details aside from the person handling and placing the stem?

What I believe I understand now is that there is power in detail. Few who look at the final design will point out the plum-coloured hairs on the pulsatilla, but the value here is in the small quiet voice harmonising with all the other voices to create a powerful and beautiful song! You might not be able to single out that one harmonising note amongst many others, but the richness achieved from the whole choir is more powerful because of it. 

I concluded that detail equals power, impact, depth! Perhaps other flowers that are quicker to be seen might shout louder, but the mass of quieter harmonising voices harnesses a powerful beauty. I am going to remember those little seed heads and their story for a long, long time.

I didn’t write anymore on the train coming home and I don’t remember if I did cry when I wrote that down. (I did cry as I finished reading Song of Achilles on the train to Uckfield 😭). I can say that time AWAY had a profound effect on me as a whole person. I had forgotten what it was like to eat at unscheduled times during the day, to get lost in an activity, to shed multitude tiny, everyday jobs and just move from one idea to the next at my own, happy pace. Having said that, my children have precipitated a sense of gentle immediacy and keenness to size the day! I was never like this prior to children. I used to think my natural timing was off by about 8 hours; I was at my best around 4pm 😆 Whether I have been bent into submission over the years or if I have actually found a rhythm that suits me better (even if I wouldn’t have chosen it myself), I found that I remained quite disciplined whilst in Belgium. I didn’t drink alcohol in the day. I got up at 7am. And I knew that whatever I felt on Wednesday would flavour the whole week, and I didn’t want to get to Wednesday and suddenly panic that half the stay had already passed! So I created and tried things out and really made something of each day. It was SUCH a joy to be surrounded by other people creating. There is that lovely hum of quiet noise that is created that is a mishmash of chatter, sweeping, a tractor…and the energy of people thinking and creating. 

~

I should say, this week was made possible by the Arts Council. On a whim, during lockdown, I started to put an application together for one the grants available at the time. This process in itself became a quite a journey. If I had known how time consuming and all-encompassing this process was going to be, I wouldn’t have done it (although it certainly helped occupy my mind during lockdown). The Arts Council have helped to fund so many artists in their search for better expression. I am forever grateful.