Summary
Summary
Named a Best Gift Book of the Year by InStyle , Real Simple , Better Homes & Gardens , and the Wall Street Journal
"If coffee tables could make . . . wish lists, [this book] would certainly be on them."
-- Better Homes & Gardens
A singular, personal celebration of the beauty and possibilities of nature
Amy Merrick is a rare and special kind of artist who uses flowers to help us see the familiar in a completely new way. Her gift is to revel in the unexpected--like a sunny spring arrangement housed in a paper coffee cup--and to overturn preconceptions, whether she's transforming a bouquet of supermarket carnations into a breathtaking centerpiece or elevating wild and weedy blooms foraged from city sidewalks. She uses the beauty that is waiting to be discovered all around us--in leaves, branches, seedpods, a fallen blossom--to tell a story of time and place.
Merrick begins On Flowers with a primer containing all her hard-won secrets on the art of flower arranging, from selecting materials to mastering pleasing proportions. Then she brings readers along on her journey, with observations on flowers in New York City and at her family's summer home in rural New Hampshire, working on a flower farm off the coast of Washington State, and studying ikebana in a jewel-box flower shop in Kyoto. We learn how to send flowers like a florist, and how to arrange them like a farm girl. We discover the poignancy in humble wildflowers, and also celebrate the luxury of fragrant blousy blooms. Collected here is an anthology of floral inspiration, a love letter to nature by an exceptional, accidental florist.
Author Notes
Amy Merrick is a traveling writer and stylist who started her career as a florist in New York City. Her flowers have been featured in Vogue and Architectural Digest and at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, MoMA PS1, and Bergdorf Goodman. She has written about her experiences with gardens, flowers, and design for the Wall Street Journal .
Reviews (2)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Merrick, a stylist turned florist, delivers an homage to all things flower-related in this opulent scrapbook-style gift book that will inspire creativity in some, and envy in others, toward the Instagram-ready lifestyle it portrays. Merrick's trendy use of unstructured, wild-looking bouquets are a key part of the book, as are her accounts how she acquired and honed her style--at Elmwood, her family's summer home in New Hampshire; by collaborating with a Japanese florist in a flower-arranging class; designing informal arrangements for small social events; and picking wildflowers in a Brooklyn parking lot. The perfectly curated evocation of another, more genteel era, through china teacups, gingham wallpaper, and ginger jars--as well as, of course, floral arrangements--should prove seductive to many readers. In one of the most memorable essays, Merrick vividly recalls describing the "smallest bedroom" (her own) where "from my pillow (with its antique, lace-trimmed case), I can watch the moon rising over the lake and see a thousand stars glow over the mountains." There is plenty of aspirational appeal to Merrick's flawless, seemingly effortless arrangements, but longtime floral enthusiasts may find a sense of the perspirational lacking from her expertly appointed guide. (Oct.)
Booklist Review
Peripatetic florist Merrick's first book a love story to flowers, and finding beauty in the humblest of places is a composite of journals, lists, practical advice, and photographs and illustrations of both plain and fancy blooms and greens. The book's seven sections how to select flowers, the story of an arrangement, in the city, in the country, fancy things, humble pleasures, and going far away mirror her lives: as a florist, as a resident of Manhattan and her family's summer home, as a traveler, and as an observer of the spectacular and the everyday. The best way to describe this very personal publishing contribution is through Merrick's own words. A miniature vase is a witty wink for a small stem. Use clippings and ask permission to be a gracious forager, she advises. At first glance, sunflowers have no secrets. Poppies are nearly narcotic in a vase. And she shares an untranslatable Japanese phrase about cherry blossoms. This is as much to be experienced as to be read.--Barbara Jacobs Copyright 2010 Booklist