ijaiisme: The Barnes, Take 2: An Evening in the Garden

Within 24 hours, we were back at the Barnes Foundation - this time for a seated dinner for 200 guests. Our challenge was to create an atmosphere of intimacy in a vast space; we did this by placing all of the farm dining tables at one end of the Court while letting the other side be used for dessert after the gallery tours.

When I first started brainstorming about the design for this particular evening, I knew immediately I wanted it to invoke the garden and the grounds of the Barnes Merion campus. We designed over 80 arrangements in a dizzying number of sizes and styles in a variety of garden containers - cement, antique wire and metal, mercury glass, stone, antique ceramic, glass, tin - in the jewel tones of spring: cerise, purple, cobalt, yellow, orange, acid green. On the rustic farm tables (squares and rectangles), the flowers looked completely at home and natural. The effect was spectacular.

Because there were so many arrangements across the seventeen tables, I wanted the visual impact to be effective both from a distance and up close. To do this, I created a series of solid color arrangements of a single flower to line the longer tables on either side of the enormous multi in the middle. As I have said before, one flower used en masse is terribly effective, especially when working in large spaces. For the square tables, I used four different types of containers and I created huge, round centerpieces that I placed on a piece of slate in the middle.

I simply loved it!

Flowers pictured include: ranunculus, agapanthus, hybrid delphinium, skyline roses, larkspur, stock, belladonna delphinium, white navonna lilies, brunelo lilies, Sarah Bernhardt peonies, Kansas peonies, Festiva Maxima peonies, craspedia, yarrow, dusty miller, white hydrangea, curly willow, voodoo roses, lime green hydrangea, myrtle, bells of Ireland, Lady's Mantle, bupleurum, seeded eucalyptus, salal, pittosporum, fresh green moss.