Let me introduce you to the floral event “Quand fleurir est un art” by “le chateau de Chaumont sur Loire”, Pascal Mutel, Gilles Pothier, Charline Pritscaloff and The Paris School of Florists!
The domaine of Chaumont sur Loire’s Center of Nature and Art created this event for the first time in 2019. The purpose was to allow floral designers to express themselves and to bring to life a period of time. For 3 days, The Paris School of Florists, the first florist school to be created in Europe was represented by the BP11 Class of a vocational high school diploma, supervised by internationally known Paris Florists’ School Professor and Floral Designer, Martine Soulier. Alongside her was another of the school’s professors, Gary Taffin, who has held the tittle of “Meilleur ouvrier de France” since 2015 and was there to train students with new floral techniques. The apprentices and teachers worked together in 3 separate rooms.
The Designer and Director of “La chambre syndicale des Fleuristes d’Ile de France”, Pascal Mutel, was also on hand with his team to decorate “la salle du billard” and another room. They created a poetic and spectacular floral decoration, as you can witness in the pictures below.
Moreover, Floral Designer Gilles Pothier was invited this year to create a floral decor in the castle’s dining room. He used a lot of flowers, foliage, berries and fruit to highlight the fireplaces and furniture of the period to give a personal touch to this ancestral place.
On the table, the artist played with volume and texture. For example, massive flowers like purple and blue Dutch hydrangeas form an effect of depth. Amaranths were put together on both sides to create an effect of gravity. Fruit, berries and gloriosa lilies brought color and lightness to the decor.
To stylize this creation, Gilles Pothier chose two massive wooden structures and lots of vases. Finally, two peacocks brought the scene to life.
We can see in these photos below the different steps of the realization.
For 3 days, the BP 11 Class of the Paris School of Florists was separated into three teams. The apprentices began by distributing and preparing the plants. The first group was in charge of decorating the main stairs of the castle. They flowered Medicis vases and created a spherical piece to create a natural effect.
Colorful flowers were used to brighten the venue: pink and orange dahlias, purple hydrangeas, and lisianthuses.
“La salle des gardes” was decorated by ten apprentices, who created a floral arch composed of cynorrhodon branches. In addition, we can observe different flowered vases in a work that highlighted the tapestries hanging on the walls.
Finally, the last area to bring to floral life was the room of the astrologer and Florentine advisor of Catherine de Medicis: Côme Ruggieri. In this room there is a 16th century polychrome fireplace, where our apprentices installed large floral structures, as you can delight in the pictures below.
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