We want to share the story behind "Farmluxe". Some of you may be wondering to yourselves, what is "Farmluxe"? In March of 2024, we were invited to Farmluxe, an amazing and surreal flower farm located on San Juan Island, Washington to collect flowers and then create a piece from those flowers. In September of 2024, we packed up 6 presses, multiple storage containers of paper, chipboard, cardboard, and the rest of our flower pressing toolkit and began the drive to Misha's (the owner of Farmluxe) farm.
We drove the 1300 miles out to Anacortes, WA, hopped on a ferry, arrived on San Juan Island, where we made our way through gorgeous landscapes to arrive at the farm. We even saw a black fox. We had seen pictures of Misha's gardens on instagram, but nothing could have prepared us for such abundance. It is hard to put Misha's farm into words. It is a work of art. It is wild. It is lush, has unlimited textures and layers of beauty. When we pulled up the first day, our mouths sort of dropped; we had arrived in our flower pressing utopia.
Each day we woke up to birds, we let the fog lift, the dew subside, and we we made a game plan. There was so much ground to cover and so many decisions to make in terms of what we should collect and what the art piece would encompass.
Our mornings were filled with picking flowers and afternoons with pressing. We did this each day for five days, but we also had to change paper everyday from all six presses, sometimes twice a day.
Once we finished collecting and pressing as many flowers as our presses could hold, we began the journey home, which was interesting as we were camping in the back of our truck. We found ourselves changing out the paper in the presses on side streets in Portland, OR, Bend, Oregon and Park City, Utah. If we hadn't changed the paper daily, we would have come home to presses full of browned and rotted flowers. Once we made it home, we continued to change paper, and poof, this piece. Magic, but not really. This was our first road trip to a farm, but we are hoping it is not our last. We had so much fun and it was so peaceful waking up in the misty dream of Farmluxe for the days we were there.
As for this piece, the original measured 27" x 39". I designed it with one shape in mind - CIRCLES. I love shapes and instead of doing an abstract piece with multiple shapes, I chose to use one shape in different sizes. From top to bottom, the theme is, circles. To me, circles are a calming shape; they are infinite and always moving. It was very fitting for this piece as Farmluxe is always moving and transforming.
Pressed flowers from Farmluxe garden featuring pressed dahlias, pressed snapdragon, pressed zinnias, pressed sweetpea, among many others.
Pressed flowers from Farmluxe garden featuring pressed echinacea, pressed strawflower, pressed celosia, pressed pea, pressed hydrangea, among many others.
Pressed flowers from Farmluxe garden featuring pressed zinnia, pressed strawflower, pressed statice, pressed hydrangea, pressed geum, pressed pansies and violas, among many others.
I hope this allowed you a little glimpse into the process of making "Farmluxe".
