Hello September! Holiday season is kicking in and you have a few dinner parties planned for this fall. Your first dinner party is this weekend! Everybody confirmed: three couples for dinner. You have already started cooking. You’re good!
One day before the party, you go to your dinning room and realize you ‘d better set the table. You make a trip to the supermarket to buy last minute items, including flowers. You are extremely surprised at how expensive they are. You think: “They won’t last more then a week for God’s sake! And I only need them for one night.”
But despite your misgivings, you buy the flowers spending way more than you wanted. You bring them home and try to make a decent arrangement. While the flowers are indeed gorgeous, you feel like it could somehow look even better. Still, as you handle them, a sensation of peace, serenity, and comfort enters your soul— and your home. By now you are in a completely different state of mind than you were in at the supermarket doubting how much they are really worth. And then you think: “one day in this life, I would love to take a flower arrangement course. “
I know exactly how you feel. It’s one of those courses that you keep on the would-love-to-do list, but never find the time, the place, or the florist. Well my friends, that is about to change! Meet Flavia Barker, a Brazilian resident of Greenwich, Connecticut.
Flavia, a native of São Paulo, started out in the financial world as a commodity trader, a job she kept until her first child was born, and realized she didn’t want to go back to the corporate world.
She opened her first flower studio with her mother, in the Pacaembu section of the city. The business blossomed; they hired many assistants and catered to corporate and private events. She loved her clientele, and was quite happy with her financial and emotional reward.
Until, one fine day, her husband came home with big news: “Honey! I am being transferred to the US and we are going to move”.
“What? I can’t leave my business”, she thought. Of course she did, and five years ago the couple moved to Connecticut, where her husband works and their kids go to school.
More than anything else, Flavia wanted to continue working with flowers, but she had to rethink her business model and familiarize herself with the logistics of conceiving a new studio in a new country, especially when that country is in a big recession.
But despite the dark clouds hanging over our economy, Flavia saw the opportunity for a new challenge when she realized that people are entertaining more, and investing more in their homes. At the request of her friends, she started to teach flower arrangement courses in a studio very nearby indeed: her own kitchen.
Recently, I attended one of her classes. Ah! The smell! The minute I arrived in her home, my nose could smell the flowers before my eyes could see them. Lilacs, orchids, and brackens decorated the house and perfumed the rooms.
Three other students were already gathered around the kitchen island preparing a beautiful flower arrangement. Jill Babb, Susan Leibowits, and Nurit Weinberg cut stems, washed stones, and wiped vases, but they also talked about their lives, children, families, and issues.
Centerpieces are the core of her repertory, and her philosophy is that for every possible event, there is an ideal flower arrangement; something that will match the food, the company, and the mood in the air. What Flavia brings to her classes is an exercise in situational partying, with endless creativity in her approach to blooming creatures.
Some of the pieces are timeless, some are just modern new inventions with a chic look. As a florist, Flavia fluctuates between the traditional taste in flowers and the clean looks we all aspire to create but don’t know quite exactly how to achieve. In every vase, she seems to find the perfect balance between the two.
“ She has a way of doing even the simple things so charmingly”, said Jill Baab, one of the students.
Classes are held on weekday mornings, and groups are formed by friends who already know each other but want to spend time together.
“There is a real bond between these ladies”, Flavia explained, “and I am very honored they choose my classes as an outlet.”
After learning the golden rules for decorating with flowers — glass, water, candle, and repetition— I felt the class to be a breath of fresh and beautifully perfumed air. I was delighted by the atmosphere and tranquility that her kitchen radiated. And truly impressed by Flavia’s talent and ability to create something so beautiful from flowers, and a few simple props.
The prospect of Flavia’s flower enterprise ever becoming as big as her studio back in São Paulo is still a long shot, she acknowledged. “But I have just started and I am already busy. Plus, I really have the passion for it”, she says. And that is easy to see in every one of her arrangements.
If you would like to contact Flavia Barker for classes, please send her an e-mail : flaviabarker@me.com