By Brenna Quan AIFD
The Northwest AIFD Chapter brought in the Spring season with a workshop featuring an exuberant guest instructor and Emerge Symposium mainstage designer – Julia Rose! She joined us hot off her whimsical, immersive multi-installation at the Portland Home and Garden Show. In Tacoma, Washington, we couldn’t have partnered up with a more generous, kind and hard-working group than the folks at Washington Floral Service at their gigantic, one-stop-shop warehouse, a perfect venue for our fun & educational event!
We were so excited to have attendees who trekked in from Utah, California, British Columbia and Oregon, as well as from all over Washington State. Travelling the farthest of course was Julia – International floral artist and media expert extraordinaire – all the way from Australia!
Attendees were greeted with an opportunity to walk the warehouse floor for some fab finds from flowers to containers, decor and more at Washington Floral. Julia then presented our guests with a body of her work & artistic philosophy using projected visuals of gorgeous shots from several floral couture photoshoots. Many of these images and stories ended up painted on the pages of her newly released book, Colour My World by Julia Rose. We were then bubbling with excitement to see her demonstrate how she creates one of her signature couture looks using brilliant, native foliages kindly donated by Premium Greens Australia.
We all participated in creating headdresses for our very own photoshoot later that afternoon with a professional photographer and model. An abundance of blooms were available to build our designs! We were so grateful to have Alexandra Farms contribute to our flower bar by donating some of their stunning garden rose varieties, as well as Sun Valley Farms. Our venue sponsor also sourced many other gorgeous flowers for us to create our projects.
After a catered buffet lunch and social hour, there was a group build of a mixed media “set design” that our model (and attendees!) could pose in, under and around with their headpieces. Washington Floral had all the props and supplies we needed to fabricate a super vibrant backdrop. We were all able to experience that contagious, passionate energy of being artsy with “our people” and left inspired to allow our inner artistry to flow and continue flowing back in our shops and studios! The 2024 Symposium attendees are absolutely in for a treat coming up in July with Julia’s presentation!
