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Feature Designer, Floral Companies, Industry Events

Joseph Massie’s ‘Rosa’ Takes Our Breath Away!

As we all know when Joseph Massie is given a major project the world holds its breath. We here at Floral.today are more than excited to bring you some of the greatness he brought to us and Her Majesty the Queen to celebrate her 90th birthday.

Thank you to Joseph and the Royal Horticulture Society for sharing with Floral.today and our followers.

Queen’s 90^th birthday floral celebration by award-winning artist unveiled at RHS Chelsea Flower Show

Joseph Massie, five-time RHS Gold Medal Winner, unveiled his spectacular floral installation at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2016 today, created to celebrate the 90th birthday of, RHS Patron, HM the Queen.

Botanical artist, Massie, 27, from Liverpool, created a design that sees a swathe of 5,000 fresh-cut Avalanche roses from Meijer Roses and 1,000 preserved rose petals suspended in the air to create a romantic, sensory tunnel.

Massie’s floral tunnel, entitled Rosa, is 20 metres long by 10 metres wide and suspended four metres above the ground.

The project marks Massie’s first return to the Chelsea Flower Show since he achieved five successive RHS Gold Medals and four Best in Show Awards between 2009-2013. Joseph was the youngest person ever to achieve this feat.

Joseph Massie, botanical artist and designer of the Rosa installation, said: “I am thrilled to be back at Chelsea – and on a much a larger scale this time around.

“It is a huge honor to be commissioned by the Royal Horticultural Society to create an installation to celebrate Her Majesty the Queen’s 90^th birthday.

He added: “I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a little bit nervous to know what Her Majesty’s verdict will be when she sees my installation for the first time!”

To create Rosa, Massie has used the finest preserved rose petals that appear rise up from the ground to a floral ceiling, strung on invisible threads. One side of the exhibit features petals in warm, summery pink tones, contrasting with softer apricot tones opposite – in keeping with this year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show logo colours.

In matching tones, fresh-cut roses intertwine with the preserved petals as they rise, forming two fuller columns, which thicken and pool out as the florals reach the ceiling. Chunkier rose heads spill out overhead and the contrasting colours meet in the centre, making for a truly spectacular floral display.

Massie, continued: “With my design, I wanted to create a sensory and immersive experience by presenting fresh rose blooms in a truly romantic and captivating way.

“I am so delighted with the final result and I really hope that the Queen, and all of this year’s visitors to Chelsea, will enjoy my exhibit.”

Five thousand flower blooms and five different types of rose varieties from Meijer Roses were used to create Massie’s exhibit, including Sweet Avalanche, Pearl Avalanche and White Avalanche, as well as more than 1,000 preserved rose petals. The roses and preserved rose petals will dry naturally over the course of the week and will be recycled into new artworks after the Show has finished.

Massie recruited 25 volunteers to assist with the installation over four days in the lead up to the Show. Volunteers were selected from Massie’s flower school, the UK School of Floristry, and from other leading colleges around the UK, as well as students from Australia, France and Sweden.

Massie added: “I would also like to say a special thanks to the incredible team of volunteers have given their time and energy to this project. Each volunteer must have scaled our scaffolding towers at least 5000 times, and always with a smile! We simply could not have completed the project without them.”

Joseph Massie collaborated with Meijer Roses and Avalanche Roses to create the Rosa installation at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2016.

The Rosa exhibit is situated beneath the Rock Bank restaurant, which connects Main Avenue and Ranalegh Way.

For more information about Joseph Massie, visit www.josephmassie.com

The RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2016, sponsored by M&G Investments, takes place from 24-28 May 2016 in the grounds of the Royal Hospital Chelsea. The theme of this year’s Show champions the health and wellbeing benefits of greening-up our grey spaces. For more information, visit www.rhs.org.uk

May 26, 2016 by Guest Writer

Feature Designer, Floral Companies, Floral Couture

Floral Is The New Black ~ Joseph Massie

PRESS RELEASE News, 22nd January 2016

FLORAL IS THE NEW BLACK

ARLENE PHILLIPS ATTENDS NTAS WEARING A JOSEPH MASSIE ORIGINAL ‘LIVING’ DRESS

Arlene and Joseph are lending their support to a campaign launched by eleven homeopathic charities and associations, including the British Homeopathic Association (BHA) and the Homeopathy Action Trust (HAT). The campaign aims to raise awareness of homeopathy and the organizations’ useful and informative website: www.findahomeopath.org.

The dress was the inspiration of award-winning floral artist (five consecutive RHS Gold Medals and four Best in Show awards from the RHS Chelsea Flower Show) Joseph Massie. Months of work have gone into designing and making the dress, with Massie and his team spending over 100 hours painstakingly attaching each petal onto the fabric.

The botanicals used within the dress include Clematis, Roses, Hydrangea, African violets, Olive, Chrysanthemum, Arabicum, Hyacinth and Jasmine, all entwined in Massie’s signature style to create a truly sumptuous bouquet.

On Homeopathy, Arlene commented, ‘I’ve regularly found Arnica cream to be so helpful with healing bruises and dancing related injuries!” She continued, ‘Once, when I was Germany, I had to take my daughter to a Doctor who prescribed a homeopathic remedy as opposed to penicillin and it helped enormously”

On the dress, Joseph commented, ‘It was such a pleasure to collaborate with these two leading homeopathic charities to create such a fabulous piece of floral couture for Arlene to wear at the NTA’s. It was a really wonderfully creative project to design a piece of couture that was both, light and elegant, but also able to hold an array of beautiful blooms. Floral couture has always been a big part of my practice, and to work with these charities to promote such a good cause was a real pleasure”

For further information, hi-res images, or to speak to Joseph Massie, please contact Joseph Massie Studios on 
hello@josephmassie.com 

www.josephmassie.com
www.josephmassieflowers.com
www.ukschooloffloristry.com

January 22, 2016 by Guest Writer

Feature Designer, Floral Companies, Products

First Jewels|Joseph Massie

I’ve always had soft spot for Snowdrops, they’re unashamedly my favorite Spring blossom. Always blooming first, ahead of Crocus, Narcissi, Primroses and latent Hyacinth, and aside from possessing a personal significance to me, they’re at once humble and delicate, yet strong and bold.

Photo Property of Joseph Massie

This Spring I spent some time creating a selection of delicate floral jewels, fundamentally to portray an expression of the delicacy and sublimity of Spring. In early January, I purchased one hundred Snowdrop plants (Galanthus) and nurtured them carefully from shoots through to delicate blossoms, whilst working simultaneously on the delicate structures for the jewelry bases. In this art series, I’ve combined the Snowdrops with a collection of other early Spring finds – dried seed heads, grey grasses, cracked Lunaria seeds and a spent snail shell collide alongside fragmented elements of early Spring gems.

Photo Property of Joseph Massie

All the pieces lasted for just twenty four hours ~ a fragile, yet appropriate time frame for this project, and afterwards, the remaining Snowdrop plants were donated to local care homes.

Photo Property of Joseph Massie

Early Spring always feels so precious to me ~ something precious, something to be treasured. I hope that ‘First Jewels’ does this time justice.

April 13, 2015 by Guest Writer

Extra, Industry Events

2014 Texas Cup Experience

I had the honor of chairing the Texas Cup competition at the 100 Year Celebration of the Texas State Florists’ Association‘s annual convention in Austin, Texas on July 18th, 2014. I came straight from my computer and finding out that I passed my PFDE Exam in Chicago and was asked to be a member of the American Institute of Floral Designers so there was no stopping this girl, so I knew the weekend was going to ROCK!

Upon arriving in Austin I had found that my flowers, generously sponsored by American Agro in Dallas, Texas, had arrived and were waiting for me, and oh how beautiful they were! The flowers I chose were lime green cymbidiums, orange and yellow roses, bells of Ireland, yellow lilies, much more fresh along with a large beautiful succulent plant and a variety of awesome greens, mosses and cool wire from Smithers-Oasis.

The contestants were aware that they would be bringing a prop to fit in the theme of the event, “The Spectrum of Design.. Treasured Memories – Future Vision”, they had $50.00 that they could spend on their prop and could do no advanced design work on it. They also knew they would be doing a wedding design and a surprise situation design.

We had a 5pm pre-competition meeting to inspect props, tools and where the designers could ask any questions they may have had and then were dismissed for 15 minutes before the dinner program started. The show featured Kevin Ylvisaker AIFD, CAFA, he put on an awesome program of how designs have changed over the decades, I unfortunately was busy with the Texas Cup preparations and was unable to see the show but I heard it was amazing. Kevin has a huge personality and shines when he is on stage, so I’m sure it was amazing!

The Texas Cup Crowd

Directly after Kevin’s show we had 15 minutes to set up and the competition began as the audience from Kevin’s show, 167 people in attendance, were served coffee and dessert as they watched the competitors. The first design was the interpretive design and the designers were allotted 45 minutes to complete this design. As I walked around the room I saw some of the first time contestants using ALL of their flowers in their first design, so being a first-timer at chairing I walked around the room nervously and loudly saying, “These are all the flowers you will be receiving”. LOL I truly didn’t know what else to do to give them some sort of chance to remove some of the flowers.

The second design was a wedding bouquet that the designers were given 40 minutes to complete and it went off without a hitch.

: ‘Rey Rey’ Rodrigues During The Surprise Piece of The Texas Cup

Now for the Surprise Package…. the contestants were asked to leave the room and step outside for 10 minutes while we set up for the surprise portion, at this time we brought in 20 easels and 20 Smither-Oasis 18″ square and round funeral wreaths. Under their desk I had placed a manila envelope that included the surprise package situation and a photograph of a deceased past president of the Texas State Florists’ Association, the designers were instructed to use the oasis wreath and they had to incorporate the frame into the design to honor the presidents of the past that have paved the way for our floral association to be what it is today, one of the strongest and innovative in the country.

Texas Cup Honorable Mention Debbie Lyon Designing Her Surprise Piece

With many groans and dirty looks being directed at me I knew the posted allotted time of 20 minutes was unreasonable so I added another 10 minutes to the time and they were off and designing. At this time it was 8:30pm approaching 9pm and the judging was underway. That 30 minutes went by extremely fast and some of the contestants are only just now forgiving me for the surprise situation and some may never forgive me, but it was a surprise design. The designers did honor the past and came through as the true designers that they are and made it happen in 30 minutes, I am so proud of all the designers.

Texas Cup Third Place Josh Anderson Designing His Surprise Package

Now it’s 9pm and the judges are working hard behind the curtains, the judges worked from 8:30pm to 1:30am before emerging with a winner of the competition. My judges were Debbie Gordy AIFD, Susan Tate AIFD and Dov E. Kupfer AIFD who is also a certified American Institute of Floral Designers judge so all of my judges were extremely qualified to do the job and it was not an easy task with 20 contestants and 60 designs to judge before they emerged with a winner.

Texas Cup 2nd Place Nora Cisneros Designing Her Surprise Piece

In the end Sheri Jentsch TMF of Blumen Meisters Flower Shop in New Braunsfels, Texas was the first place winner, Nora Cisneros of Flowers of Kingwood in Kingwood, Texas was the 2nd runner-up with Josh Anderson of James Madison High School in San Antonio, Texas receiving third place. Honorable mention went to Debbie Lyon of Hubble and Hudson Bistro in The Woodlands, Texas and Luke Harwell of Baack Flowers in Abilene, Texas.

: Texas Cup Winner Sheri Jentsch TMF Designing Her Surprise Piece

I want to thank all of those that helped me get through this experience, being my first chairing experience I had a few Uh Oh’s but we all got through it and I have learned a few valuable lessons for next year. This was one of the most successful Texas Cup Competitions in many years and I am very proud of all the contestants that stepped up and put their hearts and designs on the line to be judged by others. It’s never an easy thing to do, but when you win it is life changing and the most awesome feeling in the world. The sense of accomplishment for all your hard work is acknowledged and you can’t take that away!

Congratulations to all the contestants, you are all winner’s in my eyes!

Hope to see you next year!

Nicola Parker CFD, TMFA

August 11, 2014 by Guest Writer