I have always loved the concept of Creative Mornings. If you’ve never heard of if before, it’s a once a month breakfast lecture series for the creative community where they set a specific topic and have a guest speaker talk on it. The coolest part about CM is each chapter in cities across the country hear from a different speaker on the same topic. I had always loved the concept from reading about chapters in other places and went to the very first Louisville one with speaker Alice Stites in 2015.
The team at Creative Mornings/Louisville  asked if I would host a new thing they were doing called  FieldTrips and I was completely honored and thrilled with the thought of it. The plan was to open the session for 25 creatives to sign up, come to my studio and hear me speak on a topic of my own plus participate in an interactive exercise. I was a little overwhelmed with the idea of it, especially because it would be happenings right after the three Wreath Gatherings I had just hosted, but nonetheless I was excited.
For my lecture, I decided to talk about inspiration, specifically how to turn it into a design, since it’s a topic that comes really naturally to me. I used my inspiration board for the design of my studio to show our attendees how I turned the inspo into the space. To give them a tactical takeaway, I had them use flowers to interpret the space and create little nosegays (little bouquets) based on what they were seeing and feeling in that moment. Sounds a little complex, right, haha? It’s exactly what we do for weddings, so I wanted to find a way to have them use all their senses to create their own piece of moment inspired art.
There’s something about having flowers in your hands that feels therapeutic and immediately inspiring.  Every person that morning created something completely different inspired by what they saw with their own eyes and supported by their own memories/life experiences. Again, exactly what we do with weddings — I get to take someone’s vision and memories and create my own art through it. It’s invigorating and I am so grateful to have figured out how to be an artist/creative and make a living with it.
It was such a joy and incredible experience working with my friends from Creative Mornings. I have always wanted to do things like this and have more people in our studio–I love having guests here and plan to host more things in 2019, so keep your eyes peeled on some fun stuff coming up.
Photos by Tim Harris & Josh Jean-Marie