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Visitor transforms room into floral wonderland
 Over the Garden Fence
by Mary Lee Minor
for the Bucyrus Telegraph-Forum Lifestyles: Home & Garden Section
December 13, 2005
How do you get a term like "Mid Ohio Floral Artisan Society" to stick in your head?
The answer is that you bring experiences related to the concept to people so that there is more meaning. This is exactly what Mark Massie attempted to do last week as he and other designers came together in the community room of the Bucyrus Public Library to do what they do best - design.
The room had been transformed into a workroom. There was everything a designer might need. Oasis forms in huge blocks, spheres, circles. There was wire. There were containers. Mark invited me to come and look. My eyes fell upon floral treasures. Sure, there were the common roses, chrysanthemums and lilies. There was bucket after bucket of miniature and standard carnations of lavender tints and shades. A dark foliaged hypericum, with ruby red fruit, was quite attractive. And long strands of white dendrobium orchids caused a snap in my heart. There were Bird-of-Paradise blooms ogling me. A striking golden, orange protea caught my eye; actually it winked at me. Kale flowers of white commanded my attention.
Covetous must be a way to describe my innermost feelings. I wanted to take all the fine plant materials home. Although he was sharing everything, his ultimate goal would be to have all of us want the finished products.
When Mark brought this demonstration/exhibition to Bucyrus, he wished to promote design professionalism within the retail market.
Visitors to the library probably felt dwarfed by the pieces of floral self-expression. The sheer size impacted my memory. Mark wanted to bring many people into his world of designing. He had special support from several parts of the world - Australia, which is where he got the lavender carnations. Florida, California, perhaps Hawaii...at any rate to use his own words, there were "gazillions" of flowers and plant material. All of it had been shipped in to support his educational venture.
Thursday night when I stopped in, Mark was covering a vase in sisal and binding that onto the vase with a fine golden wire. Within minutes he had put together an open breathing-style mass design with carnations, lilies, twigs and roses.
There is a little mark of shame upon my heart because I did not dive into the process. My resistance came from the fact that my own garden club was having a flower show that very weekend. I wanted to be at home arranging for that. Turning the tables slightly on Mark, I invited him to come and view our humble show at the Bucyrus Historical Society.
Then, I offered him another showcase opportunity by asking if he would come to a garden club meeting on his day of clean-up. "We're meeting right here in the community room," I told him, "on Monday evening." He agreed to come, even suggesting that in his cleaning he would have to be getting rid of the leftovers of the gazillions of cut flowers. Be still my heart.
A bouquet of free flowers was not the only reason I was willing to invest in this concept Mark was purveying. It was a common element we share as humans: Enthusiasm. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
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About the Author:
Mary Lee Minor is a member of the Earth, Wind and Flowers Garden Club, an accredited flower show judge for the Ohio Association of Garden Clubs, and a sixth grade teacher.
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