I'm
Lisa Waud and I'm the creator of Flower House. In October 2015, along with the
help from florists friends both local and from across the country, I will
fill the interior walls and ceilings of a 16-room abandoned house with
American-grown fresh flowers and living plants.
Imagine it now: You walk across the crumbling threshold of a house that has been vacant for over a decade, signs of former lives gathered in the windowsills and trapped in the fencing. It overlooks six
busy lanes of I-75 and the whooshing of cars on its one-way highway service
drive street. The second you step inside, the city sounds are muted. Every
surface is lush with color and life. A floral carpet, a wall of foliage, a
ceiling dripping with vines. This disarray and decay was once a home and will blossom again.
Inspired by a long-time fascination with the
installations of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, and moved by images of a 2012 Dior
Show, I purchased two houses on the Hamtramck city auction in October 2014 to
launch the project.
After the floral art installation, our project partners, Reclaim Detroit, will responsibly
deconstruct the houses, diverting as much as 75% of the materials in the
building from the landfill.
When the
structures are gone, we will convert the plot of land into Flower House Farm, a
functional, beautiful flower farm for my floral design business, Pot & Box.
I’ve been in
business as Pot & Box for over 8 years, with one studio in Ann Arbor and
one in Hamtramck. We offer floral design for special events and weddings, as
well as horticultural decor and container garden services for residences and
businesses across Southeast Michigan.
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I
remember the first time I saw images of Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s wrapped
Pont Neuf bridge in Paris. When i didn’t think “Why?” but instead, “How?”, I
knew something was stirring in me.
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I wouldn’t know until years later, when I poured over images
of the 2012 Dior show installation, exactly what I was going to do.
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There was an image from that show that I couldn’t shake; it was an image of
a gorgeous girl, in a gorgeous gown, with a look on her face that couldn’t be described. I
wanted to be there, in those rooms, to know what it felt like, what it smelled
like, what it sounded like. I knew I had to create my own house of flowers and
invite as many people as possible to experience it with me.
As I began talking about my idea, it was surprisingly easy
to get florists on board my vision for the installation. But as the project
evolved, I realized that Flower House is a three-part story. It’s about the flowers, the houses, and the farm.
THE FLOWERS
The Flower House October installation will be an
unprecedented one. We will experience something that has never been done
before—for one weekend, the walls, ceilings, floors, and fixtures will be
bursting with luscious blooms and textural foliage harvested from American
farms coast to coast, and featuring our own Great Lakes state. There is a real and strong momentum gaining for consciousness in growing, sourcing, and buying flowers grown in our own soil. Much like the Slow Food movement, the Slow Flowers Movement is changing the way people think about where their cut flowers come from in America. To listen my interview about Flower House's commitment to using all American-grown flowers, visit the slowflowers.com link here.
The house will
be open to the public from Friday, October 16th through Sunday,
October 18th. This weekend's installation will be a once-in-a-lifetime chance to experience a brief moment of breathtaking beauty in a house that was once abandoned, soon to be torn down, then replaced with a living, growing flower farm.
When the visitors are gone and the flowers have wilted, the materials will be the first to make up the composting system at the future flower farm. While it may seem wasteful to have used them for a brief, artful weekend, the flowers will have been a part of a story being recounted, told, and written. Just like the materials in the structures, the flowers will live on as something new and beautiful.
THE HOUSE
As the houses are situated, they are in a unique place. They are not only on a busy service drive along a busy highway, but they are also on the edge of a busy, dense city within a city. Dequindre Street, I-75, Hamtramck, Detroit. What a strangely perfect setting for our Flower House.
The sustainable deconstruction of the two adjacent houses I
bought on foreclosure auction will take place after the October installation.
We’ve partnered with the deconstruction experts at Reclaim Detroit to
responsibly bring down the houses and make way for the future flower farm for
Pot & Box. The goal is to dismantle the structures and divert as much 75%
of the reusable materials out of the landfill. The hope that this deconstruction and land repurposing
will inspire others to see abandoned structures as platforms for art and
business, and to use them in an environmentally responsible way.
THE FARM
After the floral exhibition and the deconstruction of both
structures, the formerly neglected land will be cultivated into a flower farm.
The new farm will offer locally grown fresh flowers for weddings and events and
host floral design classes in a unique urban setting. Flower House Farm
hopes to inspire others in Detroit to utilize our abundant land for creative
and productive projects, and to create a space that the community can be proud of where there once was danger and blight.
FUNDRAISING
When I was first thinking about this project, I assumed that
any fundraising would be for the actual flowers for the installation. But
through incredibly generous floral donations from local wholesalers at Nordlie
and Mayesh and from the California Cut Flower Commission, the focus of the
fundraising has shifted. Please join us to give this house one last hurrah
before Reclaim Detroit brings the houses down, with as many materials as
possible gathered for reuse in the community, and to support this local Detroit
business as it helps to create job opportunities for local people facing
barriers to employment and to create positive social and environmental outcomes
out of the urban waste stream commonly called "blight".
PERKS
For your generous donations, we'd love to outfit you with Flower House swag and incredible experiences--an evening at Lisa's studio with the Flower House team, and dinner out in Detroit with the Flower House florists, photographer, and filmmakers.
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Shown above: Perfume inspired by the installation flowers blended by our friend Monique at Alchemy, a botanical Flower House screenprint by our friend Marcy Davy at All Things Grow, American-sewn tote bags printed by our friends at VG Kids.
Be sure you check out all the donor perks in the column to the right.
AMBITION
We know this is a wonderfully absurd project. Who takes the time and energy to fix up a
decomposing house only to fill it with flowers for a weekend before deconstructing
it and farming the land? I’ll tell you who. Let’s meet the team:
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Lisa Waud, Pot & Box
Liz Andre-Stotz, Parsonage Events
Jody Costello, J. Costello Designs
Holly Rutt, Sweet Pea Floral Design
Susan Mcleary, Passionflower
Heather Saunders, Heather Saunders Photography
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Na & Rob Frenette, Hello Future Films
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Lia
Colapietro, Lia
Colapietro Floral Design
Kelli
Galloway, Hops
Petunia
Martha
Deflorio, Made
Floral
Jennifer
Haf & Larissa Flynn, Bloom Floral Design
Jamie
Platte, Pontius
Flower Shop
Katherine
Yates, Pot
& Box
Janet
Martineau, Floral
Verde
Francoise
Weeks, Francoise
Weeks European Floral Design
Anne
Kilcullen, Blade
NYC
Denise
Fasanello, Denise
Fasanello Flowers
Isha Foss, Isha Foss Events
With a
fierce team like this, we are poised to tackle any challenges that will arise.
And they will! But I'll tell you from experience, wedding florists can handle
*anything* that comes our way. And at least for me, I secretly like a
challenge. Who doesn't want to play MacGuyver under pressure and come out on
top?
MORE THAN MONEY
Although
our fundraising goals are high and mighty, there are other ways to help make
Flower House happen that are just as important as donating.
Seeing that
my initial motivation for this installation was to experience what it feels
like to stand in a house lush with flowers, you can help us SPREAD THE WORD. We
want people across the country--and the world--to visit the installation in
October. Tell everyone you know about this crazy thing happening in Detroit!
You can use the share buttons right here on this Indiegogo campaign
site.
We will also need VOLUNTEERS. There will be a lot to take care of
leading up to and during the fall event. Sign up for the Flower House
newsletter to stay in touch: www.tinyletter.com/flowerhouse
If
you are interested in joining our killer line up of participating FLORISTS,
please visit our website for a link to apply to design a room in Flower
House: www.theflower.house/contact
