March 7: There’s an email from Deb Dowson with the final matches between Bromfield students’ artwork and Garden Club arrangers for the Bloom N Art show at Fivesparks March 25 and 26. I take a deep breath and scroll down through the pictures. I don’t have to go far to find my first choice. All in red and white, it’s the head and shoulders of a woman, her white face framed by bobbed red hair with bangs. I am excited when I see my name beside the image. Having been hopeful, for the past few days I have been rearranging red and white carnations in my head.
Looking more closely, I see that the face looks angry and a bit wild. The image is called “Homage to Kusama,” and now I see that the name is written everywhere—in the hair, across the chest, and broken up into letters in the space around the face. I get an email from MM, who knows who the real Kusama is and sends me a YouTube video. Yoyoi Kusama is a famous contemporary artist, who is sometimes called the “Polka Dot Princess” for her obsession with dots in her work. Now 93, she came to America from Japan on her own at the age of 28 and established herself in New York. She is an outspoken feminist who has been voluntarily living in a psychiatric hospital since the 1970s. Fascinating, but none of this helps with my floral arrangement.
“Homage to an Artist—Kusama” by Bromfield freshman Sophia Marder.
March 10: There is a workshop at Fivesparks where we get to see the actual artwork we will be working with. Arrangers are milling around, asking each other what piece is “theirs,” and it’s impressive to listen to the ideas they are offering one another. It turns out there are six other women who have never done this before, and it’s easy to spot us. We’re the ones with the deer-in-the-headlights look, while all the others are chatting excitedly. People are being helpful to us newbies, telling us to just have fun, anything will work—“They’re flowers, they’re beautiful.” In a slide show, Deb Dowson critiques some examples of paired art and flowers and talks about different approaches we can take and gives us some tips. She assures us that we “can’t go wrong.” Why don’t I believe that?
March 11: Over and over I have been hearing Dowson’s words, “The container can kickstart everything.” I have to find one so I can do a practice arrangement. I have been envisioning a shallow, red, rectangular container. Three different people have offered me red vases, but they won’t work for what I have in mind. Experienced arrangers have encouraged us to interpret freely, to think outside the box. Unfortunately, I have been envisioning a rather literal interpretation of “Kusama”; I’m trapped inside the box.
I set out for TJ Maxx to find the perfect red container. I wander over to a likely-looking department. A thorough search shows there’s not much in the way of vases, let alone the elusive one of my vision. I go up and down aisles of dishes. I spend time debating whether a white baking dish of some sort would work but decide they’re too large and heavy. I’m trying not to panic. But I have to get something. After much stewing, I decide on a narrow, black baking pan, thinking I can put white polka dot stickers on it. I hurry to checkout before I can second-guess myself and hand it to the cashier. “Oh, a meatloaf I see.” Little does she know.
Also from the start I have been thinking of rows of red carnations, with some smaller white ones to look like polka dots. Bloom N Art has a grant from the Harvard Cultural Council, and we each get $30 to spend on flowers. I’m excited to experiment, so I head to Idylwilde to choose some flowers. There are no red carnations, only mini carnations in salmon and shades of pink. I’m disheartened, to say the least. I had such high hopes, and all I have to show for my efforts is a meatloaf pan.
March 12: The pan is sitting on the counter mocking me—it’s not as though, if I can’t arrange flowers in it, I’ll make a meatloaf. MM picks me up to go to an Art In Bloom show at the Needham library. The building is huge, and there are amazing arrangements spread throughout. We have fun admiring the beauty and creativity of the arrangements. It was really nice of MM to take me, but I am now inspired to the point of paralysis.
March 13: Full of renewed hope and determination, I head for Trader Joe’s because many people have said what great flowers they have. And they do—just not the ones I need. I’m starting to revise my vision, searching now for red flowers of absolutely any kind. I circle back to Idylwilde, thinking Monday might be a good day. And I circle back out—the parking lots are jammed solid with storm-worried shoppers.
My remaining hope is that some arrangers going in to the Flower Market in Chelsea two days before the show will bring me back some red carnations and I can make my idea work. Meanwhile, I’m just waiting for the nightmare where Yoyoi is chasing me down the street, throwing polka dots at me, and plum, pink, orange, and fuchsia carnations surround me with mocking laughter.
Carlene Phillips, author of “A Common History: The Story of Harvard’s Identity,” is a regular feature writer who pauses from time to time to reflect on the humor in the everyday.
