the flower girls

I love florists in a way that I think about being one sometimes. Constantly touching petals and stems, hands damp, tying, cutting, carrying. It seems wonderfully tactile, and you get to go home smelling like flowers and earth and lingering sweat, which I think is so sexy.

It's a tough job, though, very physical and time-consuming. Of course I know all about that. I don't really know anything about it, but I like to watch people who do. Hence, my flower girls, and their blogs which I look at all the time.

The first one I found was Tigers to Lilies by Lili Cuzor, a florist/plant-stylist in LA. She makes me want to go to Southern California for the desert and white stucco houses and all the colors they reflect. Her blog is a collection of her own photographs, pictures of her work, and fantastic images from artists she finds and loves. Her installations pop up all over LA it seems, and I always wish I could go and see them.

After Lili came Amy Merrick, a writer/florist who used to work at Saipua in New York but now works on her own. She has a studio in Greenpoint but is often at her family's farmhouse, Elmwood, where she gathers wildflowers, charges her creativity, and takes care of old-house-things. She works all over the East Coast, and you can see her arrangements (luscious, sensual, luminous) and read what she's up to here.

Then, flowing from my Amy-gazing, I found Sarah Rhyanen of Saipua fame. She and her partner (and her parents!) make soaps and flower arrangements in Red Hook, and I just want to join their family. More realistically, I follow her blog, World's End, named for a flower/goat farm that she's growing. She's a funny and honest writer (farming is hard, man), and her photographs (of the farm, the goats, her peonies) are beautiful.

And to take our heads out of the flowers, this piece by Ta-Nehesi Coates, got me good this morning. I also wish I had something more to say about the killing of Jordan Davis. I don't think you can say enough.

images by Lily Cuzor, Amy Merrick, Sarah Rhyanen, and Riley Messina (who I just discovered this morning)