My playful explorations with foliage were primarily creative diversions to explore my own aesthetic sensibilities, without constraints or expectations.
Although my work as an architectural designer was highly creative and nourishing, it was also serious, often pressured and exacting. And so I turned to leaves and their blossoms for fun and games. As I molded and shaped the vegetation of my surroundings, it in turn, began to mold and reshape my approach to beauty, style, and ultimately to entertaining.
More than creativity and versatility, my new approach brought with it simplicity. I no longer relied on elaborate color schemes, extensive collections of china, or expensive flower arrangements to entertain memorably.
Simplicity ushered its own brand of beauty; oblivious to the pressures of consumerism, it embraced conservation, not consumption; it explored not how much, but how little was needed to celebrate the beauty around us. The simplicity of less - not in the complexity of more - I began to understand, was the path most harmonious with Nature. Freed from the superfluous, old, recycled foliage could amuse and delight, astonish and dazzle.
S.D.
Text & photographs copyright by Stella Dabby Deporis
Text & photographs copyright by Stella Dabby Deporis
