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Flowers From Fabric
| Article
# : |
14748 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
Date : |
11 / 1988 |
2,059 Words |
| Author
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Judy Ford Hogan
Judy Ford Hogan, an internationally known floral artist, is
the author of Fabric into Flowers. |
Feathers and seashells were used by early Chinese and Italian artisans in an attempt to fashion replicas of flowers, the most beautiful of nature's gifts. Today, using a clever combination of twentieth-century fabric, convenient household products, and a few items normally found in the trash pile, you can add a contemporary twist to this ancient art.
In 1756, Diderot's Encyclopedia of Science and Art told of a master flower maker named Seguin. Though trained as a chemist and botanist in Paris, Seguin applied his scientific knowledge of plant life to making artificial creations of flowers, plants, and trees, complete with fruit and gnarled bark. His botanically accurate specimens decorated palace interiors with life-size gardens. Seguin fashioned his creations from fabric, parchment, silkworm cocoons, grains, and wire thread.
Seguin trained others to help his with his thriving business. By the end of the century, Parisians enjoyed a worldwide reputation for their excellence in flower making. About the same time, French émigrés introduced the art form to England and as immigration to America increased, the craft quickly crossed the Atlantic.
In 1854, an article in Godey's Lady's Book, a popular magazine of the day, discussed the state of the art of flower making America. An elegant artificial flower exhibit at the next World's Fair in Philadelphia displayed handmade flowers constructed from paper, palm leaves, straw, shells, chocolate, soap, wood, marble, porcelain, human hair, and earthenware. But the most beautiful were made of fabric.
Although
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