“If you have learned a skill, teach someone else to do it.
If you meet a designer who has perfected a skill, learn from them.
This keeps our design skills alive and cross pollinate expertise between craft and art forms creating a stronger skill set that ensures floral art stays relevant and continues to thrive.
We can buy flowers anywhere, it is a skilled floral artist that translates flowers into emotions. It is our skills that sets us apart.”
In this issue, our Editor caught up with Canadian experimental floral designer Christine de Beer who is an accredited Advanced/Master Florist and whose floral design work spans sustainable floral design skills and technique development, teaching, writing about craftsmanship and taking part in design shows.
As a little girl, Christine used to play with flowers building fairytales from twigs and petals, and later followed all the training paths, which have given her an unique insight into what it takes to master your craft as a flower arranger. She still uses a lot of the techniques she made up as child in her work today. She also has two college certificates in Floristry; one in Flower Arranging and one in Floristry Business Management. And after her studies she continued her journey, first as an apprentice designer, then as an intermediate designer, and was awarded her Advanced Accreditation in 2010.
Inspired by a passion for the floral industry, crafting with nature, and with an eye for creative potential Christine has represented Canada in some of the best known floral shows in the world and has won awards (including two innovation awards) for her designs on a National and International level including The World Association of Flower Arrangers Show (Boston), Canada Blooms (Toronto), The South African Flower Union Show (Cape Town), and The Chelsea Flower Show (London). She was also a columnist for The Canadian Florist Magazine and DIY Wedding Magazine for a few years before writing her own book.
It was actually her experience competing at the Chelsea Flower Show in 2015 that sparked Christine’s idea of what became her first book, The Effortless Floral Craftsman (IngramSpark 2019) which expands on her articles and designs on The My Creative Workbook website (christinedebeer.ca).
Christine explains: “I have always wanted to participate in the Chelsea Flower Show. I mean, it is THE Chelsea Flower Show! So when I received the invitation to enter, there was absolutely no way I was saying no. But making that decision was the only thing that was easy about taking part! Being an international competitor in a design show always comes with unique challenges and this time was no different. After a lot of stressful days of preparations and complications, our flight needed to be delayed to the absolute last possible moment which meant I arrived from Canada at Heathrow airport just in time for me to condition my flowers (fortunately the only supplier willing and able to help delivered the flowers to my hotel room earlier in the day but unfortunately they were all flat packed in cardboard boxes with no water source at all), have a quick shower and then rush to the hall to stage the design overnight.
I was exhausted, stressed and struggling.
My design space was also right by the door where the floor was nothing more than a wooden platform which meant that every time someone walked in or out of the hall my entire design wobbled alarmingly.
At one point, about 2am in the morning, I walked out to get some fresh air. I was struggling. My husband Marius was out there. He had waited around just in case I needed something. He gave me one look and simply said: “Trust your talent.”
I marched myself straight back in and finished the design. And I won a Silver medal. But even more valuable: “Trust your talent”. Words I now design by.
The Chelsea Show was everything I hoped it would be and more though.The feeling of being part of such an enormous group of creative people who are all there with the same goal, to create something so beautiful, is indescribable. It is that feeling that, after all is said and done, makes us wish to one day be back in the Great Pavilion…”
Across her creative floral endeavours, Christine is driven by her belief that it is AFTER you learn how to design that your real work starts. It is up to you to relearn how only you can design and make what you have learned truly unique. In addition to continuously improving your skills you need to learn how to trust your talent. And that part of our journey is what her book is about.
The Effortless Floral Craftsman received the highest Independent Book publishing honor – An Independent Press Award – for outstanding quality. And in 2020, her book was included in the permanent collection of Library and Archives Canada. The handcrafted craftsmanship edition of the book sold out before Christine had shared any pictures of it and later in the year debuted as a number one bestseller on Amazon Canada’s Flower Arranging list and number three in the prestigious Amazon Best Sellers list. It is both a beautiful coffee table book, and an all you need guide to crafting with flowers to keep in your design room – skillfully bound to craft the best quality book possible.
These days most of Christine’s creative energy goes towards creating a valuable online space where she can connect on a one-to-one basis with the designers who have assembled around her My Creative Workbook website and book. The website started as a place for her to capture her own floral design research and experimental work and like minded designers started to notice and they told their friends who in turn told their friends. The website grew into a creative design resource used by talented designers from all over the world who are dedicated to creating truly remarkable work; the kind that only comes from developing and nurturing your own creative spark.
Christine has been adding an original new design with its tutorials to her website every single week for almost 700 weeks straight – not a single week missed! Her design style immediately resonated with floral artists and crafters, with hundreds of her designs and tutorials shared on social media. The weekly designs have repeatedly found viral status online and as a result, Flowers Across Australia included her on their list of “one of today’s most influential designers in the world”.
In addition to sharing her weekly designs and tutorials, Christine also invites floral designers, floral artists, floral sculptors and passionate floral crafters into her virtual design room by joining the email conversation about creative processes, what inspires us and how we navigate setting up our environment so that we can flourish to create floral designs that are increasingly better than we ever thought possible.
Also, you can top up your creative knowledge by browsing the most extensive tutorial library and design examples available online from a single designer and then when you are ready, sign up to join her one on one email subscribers’ Level Up conversation. The weekly style and creative process discussion is specially created for dynamic creatives to explore their own creative potential, places yet to grow, how we navigate creative roadblocks, discover our own effortless style and create our work.
Christine lives in Vancouver, in beautiful British Columbia, with her husband Marius and her 12 year old Ceropegia woodii vine.
Thank goodness for the world wide web, which means that her intricate organic plant and floral works can be enjoyed by so, so many!
Instagram: @chris10debeer
Featured in FLORA Spring 2024
