10 Apr Deborah Main: Floral Design & Film Stories with Tess Casey

Part II: Tess Casey’s studio, Aisling Flowers, and a Floral Design Workshop. As mentioned in Part I: Deborah Main Inspired by Flower Market with Tess Casey, the first day of #BlogTourNYC with Tess Casey was all arranged by our generous sponsor West Edge Design Fair.  Thank you!!!

Tess has this quality about her that is so genuine, so gentle, so kind, and so giving.  The fact that she works with flowers speaks volumes about her “Earth Goddess” status. She has a magical aura and quiet strength about her that is indescribable, and with every word she kept drawing me in further to her world of flowers.  Tess so generously:

• walked us through the flower markets of New York,
• showed us her studio and had breakfast waiting for us,
• shared with us delightful stories of her life and the films she’s worked on, and
• taught us helpful floral arranging tips that we could use every day.

I cannot thank you enough Tess Casey and Megan Reiling and Troy Hansen of West Edge Design Fair for such a memorable experience that I will always treasure!  I hope seeing glimpses of Tess’s studio, and  hearing her speak in the brief videos I provide below, will give you a sense of how spectacular this experience truly was for me and what a very special woman Tess Casey is. It was an honor to meet and learn from her!

Below we’ve just stepped out of the tiny, old-style metal cage elevator that brought us to this hallway.

We’re all just SO excited, ready to get in from the chilly day and settle down to floral arranging, that I don’t think ANY of us ever imagined how gorgeous and fascinating Tess’s studio –  or she – would be!

 From left to right: Jill Abelman, Jeanne Chung, Alison Habermehl, Vicki Bolick, Paola Thomas, Marc Abelman, Miles (Tess’s assistant), and Maureen Coates.

And this is the room (below) that awaited us!!!  You can’t see it from this photo, but on the right behind the table with the bananas are shelves and shelves of the trimmings to create the magical floral arrangements for which Tess is so highly regarded.  When I walked in, well….it kind of took my breath away it was all so beautiful!!!

Tess Casey’s studio, Aisling Flowers, all set and ready to go for the floral design workshop…just awaiting the arrival of the team members of #BlogTourNYC.

 In this little vignette (above) is Tess’s wedding gown, a bodice and 3 large white vases, and of course the radiator that is so prevalent in all the buildings back east. The radiator brings back childhood memories when I lived on Main Street in Kingston, New York in the first floor apartment of a Victorian home.  My Siamese cat would lie on top of the radiator (there was usually a board or something he could rest on) and I’d wake him up just to kiss his warm nose.  He tolerated it…mostly.

The only “couple” on our team of #BlogTourNYC, were the most charming and delightful, Marc and Jill Abelman, of Inside Style Home.  I got a chance to talk with Marc quite a bit at dinner that night at Miele showroom, another one of our wonderful sponsors. He and his wife own a showroom in Vegas and have two lovely daughters.  I so enjoyed meeting them both! Marc and I exchanged stories about our daughters and talked education while we dined on the most incredible meal ever by chef, Cedric Vongerichten (more on that meal in my next few posts!).  I love Tess’s large Chinese armoire on the right in rich red laquer. I found lots of red, my favorite color, throughout Tess’s studio.

Here is yet another casual vignette (above) with a variety of urns, delicate clear parasols and glass boxes, that appeared all beautiful and perfect, but in a natural kind of way with the old painted original wooden flooring. Wherever you looked in Tess’s studio, there were stories, treasured belongings from a movie or something she was preparing for. Maybe that’s what spoke to me, because that is how I have my home…every piece of furnishing and decor has a story behind it. As did these chandeliers, which totally entranced me.

Tess told us how she and her team hand strung tiny chains, that she’d bought at Home Depot, one by one to create this magnificent cascading effect for this incredible lighting. I”m sure it was for one of the movies she mentioned, but I was so entranced I don’t think I heard that part!

I consider this photo, taken by Marc Abelman, my official “portrait” photo from #BlogTourNYC.  I think he did a lovely job, don’t you? Thank you Marc!!

Before we get started arranging flowers, please take a moment to get familiar with Tess Casey.  She talks a little bit in this video about her background and how she came into doing flowers and the training she had for her career.

Here are eight fascinating facts I garnered from hearing Tess share her stories about her life and being a floral designer for film:

• Tess has no favorite flower. She loves them all.
• She always uses fresh flowers in all her arrangements on movie sets.  You can’t use silk because the camera lighting will melt the flowers.
• Her “look” is Pulbrook and Gould, (fashionable 50 year old florist in London)
• She loves the “historical access” working in film allows you.  Like being able to get the “feel for the era” from a 1920’s book on weddings so she can make the flowers and foliage “very pure” for the movie or HBO series.
• There are many different people you work for from set directors to production designers who create the look of the show.
• Tess did research and sourcing for the film “Twilight” as a consultant.
• You have to be very flexible in floral designing for films. Just when she got the flowers all perfect for a scene the director says “Mess them up! Mess them up!” because they were TOO perfect. Or, they might cancel a shoot because it’s raining and then ask you “Can you do the wedding tomorrow?” which means you have to set the flowers up for the scene all over again.
• She loves working on the HBO series “Boardwalk Empire” as the main character is a florist and she creates a wide variety of floral arrangements for this series.

You see why I was totally enthralled with her stories?!?! Now the class begins and Tess starts teaching us all about floral design. Each of us has a short vase and buckets full of purple flowers. Tess has such a wonderful way of explaining things. I think I could have listened to her for hours, as she had such fascinating stories peppered into all she taught us. Like the HBO series “Boardwalk”. I hadn’t heard of it, but the main character is a florist and in many scenes the characters are holding flowers. This was an interesting read about the meaning and symbolism of “Flowers in Boardwalk Empire” which helped me understand better what Tess was talking about.

Okay, back to floral arranging, I promise! After hearing Tess speak she gave us time to make our own floral design.  It was great fun, more challenging than I thought it would be, and we all learned so much as Tess would walk around and assisted us where needed.

(If you don’t have time now to watch the videos, please come back and take a peek as .I’d love to hear what you think).

Here are five professional floral design tips I learned from Tess, that you too can use the next time you grab some flowers at the grocery store! Well, lets just call them a term she used often, “The Mechanics of Floral Arranging”:

• How to cut the stems properly. Now THAT was a challenge!  She had a special knife for each of us to cut the stems at an angle.  Not with scissors mind you, but a sharp curved knife (I forgot what she called it??). Now it seems like it would be easy like paring an apple, right? Wrong… there was a real knack to it and I definitely had trouble doing it without cutting myself.
•  The mechanics are also the items you use to hold the flowers in place.  Like stones, fake glass, rubber bands in water, even straws for a kids party, chicken wire. Now that’s the one I chose which I thought would be a piece of cake…it was harder than I thought. You also can use flowers as your mechanics.
• The Vase is so important. She told stories of “Dumpster Diving” and using anything from a coffee can to a beautiful glass tray.
• Water is better for the flowers than an oasis. I didn’t really know what an oasis was, but its that green foam thingie that they stick flowers into. Tess said flowers will last longer and do better directly in water than using an oasis. Good to know!
• Cut the stems of tulips one inch shorter than you want them.  Well, now how handy is THAT tip!!  We all have put tulips in vases and had them flop all over the place, right? Well, evidently, that’s because tulips GROW when in the water!!  I don’t think any of us had heard that before. So this one wins the golden prize for “Most Valuable Floral Design Tip from Tess Casey”.

Here we all are intensely focusing on the challenge before us.  It was amazing how diverse our arrangements were.  As I mentioned before, I have literally never used a short vase, so it was far more challenging than I thought. But I learned so much!

I love this photo above of Dallas interior designer, Jeffrey Johnson, in action with Canadian designer, Maureen Coates, on the right and California designer, Jeanne Chung, on the left VERY focused!

The lovely Paola Thomas with her arrangement.

The beautiful Jill Abelman with her floral design.

Jill’s hubbie, Marc Abelman, with his precious design.

The effervescent Typhanie Peterson with her stylish design.

And lastly, Tess ended our fantastic day with her story about making 50+ floral bouquets for Sarah Jessica Parker to throw at her man in the film “Sex and the City”!!  Now that’s a lot of flowers!  (I’m going to go rent the film this weekend, just so I can see the flowers!) Tess was full of fascinating stories and I wish I could share them all with you!

Above is a photo of the infamous flower bopping scene in “Sex and the City”.

Tess and I. She was so gracious to pose with all of us!! Thank you Tess!!

And finally, my challenging floral design above.  Let’s just say I know how to make a bouquet of roses look gorgeous in a tall crystal vase from the Main family in my home, but REALLY designing flowers, well that is an art by a floral designer.

And, in New York,  when it comes to floral design, Tess Casey is the Goddess of them all!!

Thank you Tess for such an enriching experience that I’ll always remember. And thank you Megan and Troy of West Edge Design Fair for creating such a spectacular day!

I hope, dear friends, you’re enjoying reliving #BlogTourNYC with me, because hold onto your hats, we’re not even finished with day one!!  The entire tour was sponsored by BLANCO, Miele, Prizer Hoods, DXV, West Edge Design Fair, and Rutt Cabinetry.  Deborah Main Designs  trip was paid in full by our sponsors and our fearless leader, Veronika Miller of Modenus. All photos (except for the one that Marc took) are by Deborah Main Designs and all opinions expressed are mine. Onto Eatily for lunch in my next post. Till then, please enjoy the videos and all the beautiful flowers, XOPG