My Tribute to Van Gogh

Floristry has been half of my occupation for almost 2 years now, but I've decided to go back to school and get qualified. I always thought it was going to be a waste of time and money. The time I could've spent to work is now replaced with class and homework. Plus, since they still count me as an international student I had to pay 3 times more for this semester not including materials and flowers. Somehow these things didn't put me off. Greg supported me, we found the money and paid for it.

Because of that I didn't really want to miss a single opportunity to grow, and I've told my teachers that. The day I enroll they gave me a competition to enter- which I didn't think much of, all I know it had a vague uninspiring theme 'Tribute to a Falling Star". I thought, 'O geez, what a way to make a political statement and get into trouble'.

Anyways, first day of class came and I was really, really nervous my stomach felt like it's invested by things that flies. The idea of going back to school terrifies me. But as it turns out, I really enjoyed school. I really like my teachers and my classmates, and I'm learning A LOT. We wired a heck of a lot of stuff too which is right up my alley. Didn't find it easy though. I need to work faster, and although my jewellery making skills help, I still have to stop making everything so petite like my jewellery.

Week 4 of school came and it was right on the date where I'm supposed to have submitted my application to the Oasis people- and I completely forgot about it. As soon as I saw Gina she says, "Are you going to the Easter show?" I'm like, "What Easter show?"- and that's the other thing I didn't know. The competition is part of the Sydney Royal Easter Show- and it really threw me off because I've never heard anything about it let alone know what it is. Though it did clicked to me that well, I almost missed my opportunity. I didn't get home till after hours that night and so I had to email them. The next day I called them to make sure they've got my application. They did, I'm in, all good.

So now I have to find my topic. Oh my goodness my head goes round and around between Marilyn Monroe and Michael Jackson and I just can't see it. I spoke to all my friends about this thing that I have to do. And actually I found the idea that my topic doesn't have to be an actor/singer from a conversation over dinner I had with a girl I bumped into from Melbourne. We were talking about the Toulouse Lautrec exhibition in Canberra, and then about how Monet's paintings are coming soon to Sydney. Monet was actually my first choice of topic. The next day my boss said, "Did you know Monet has had a lovely life?" No, no idea but he's famous and I can actually relate to him as supposed to Marilyn Munro and I'm freakin out cause the competition is next weekend! 2 days later I mentioned this idea to Hazel and she said, "Why don't you choose Van Gogh? He had a terrible life and he was a painter of stars!"  

So that was it. Topic chosen. During class I was making a bridal bouquet and sketching ideas at the same time. By the end of the class I showed Hazel my sketches, she gave me feedback, more ideas, and off I go.

That coming weekend was very busy for me and Greg. My husband Greg is a very handy man so I drew him my ideas and he helps me build it. We tend to not know what step 2 will be until you're finished with step 1. Greg will ask me how are we going to do this and that and that and I'll have no clue until we get there. It was a challenging weekend. Greg was optimistic that whole time, but then on the way to church on Sunday night he said, " I'm not so sure about this anymore, I think the pole is going to fall over...". During church I was so stressed I couldn't really think about anything else besides my stupid installation

On Wednesday I invited Hazel to my house to have a look at the installation because it was already half buildt. She was only there for 45 minutes, but in that time she managed to give me feedback that changed my ideas and materials that I chose initially. It was so productive and focused, I don't think I've enjoyed a more intelligent conversation ever. That afternoon I made phone calls and run around for flower source. This is really bothering me but being in Canberra I have no choice but to order flowers from Sydney and pay double just so that I have a peace of mind of having the materials that I'm after. An hour after I called the supplier, Hazel called me back and said, "Hi Fionna, I'm in Belconnen and looking at your flower order right now. I see that you're missing this and that...". I'm kind of amazed how committed she is to this. I spent the rest of the afternoon making wire swirls and when Greg came home he drove me to school to see Hazel again. We managed to make more changes to it and finally wrote up a run sheet. Talking to Hazel with Greg was extremely helpful- it just means that all of us are in the same page with absolutely everything. Hazel just knows the black and white of common sense and it saves me and Greg arguing about the little things. We drove home that night feeling very confident that our installation is going to stay up.

The flowers arrived to Canberra from Sydney on Friday afternoon. Greg and I had to work that day but Greg generously left work early to pick it up. That night we still had time to go to a Tripod concert- because they are our heroes and I actually get to see their concert this time. After the concert Greg and I tried to work more but we were both so tired that we ended up just getting cranky at each other and didnt get anywhere. I went to bed at 2am, got up at 8am and kept going. I was mainly working with the wire swirls, making them and gluing them to the transparent tube. The wire wouldn't stick to the plastic and I was getting very frustrated, so in the morning I decided to wire them to the tube.

By the time we've got everything sorted and packed, it was noon exactly when we left the house. We dropped by to "office works" to get my Van Gogh's sign laminated and then we're really off to Sydney. Once we got there we checked in to the formula one hotel in Einfield and dropped off Theresa to the train station. After that we went to visit one of our friends in the hospital who just had a major kidney surgery. His surgery went well and we had a good catch up time with him even though it wasn't very long. And then we met up with some other friends for dinner. Thankfully we finish everything by 8pm and we were both really exhausted.  Greg fell asleep while I finish more wiring and I spent a few minutes before going to sleep to memorizing my run sheet, praying and trying to calm my nerves. Not sure how well that works because I could't sleep for a few hours and for some unknown reason I jumped out of bed at 2 am.

We left the hotel at 5:30am and got to the Olympic park at around 6am. As I'm writing this I just realize the reason why I was so tired all that time last week. I didn't really get much sleep did I? We were the first one to arrive at the flower pavilion for this competition. There's already a few people there for the Interflora competition, but not for the Designz cup. A few minutes later while we were setting up, we met Maria, Katrina and Michael.

The previous night and that morning I was actually really worried about the state of my irises. They were closed when I got them, but they opened fully when we drove them to Sydney. That's the thing with irises, when they are exposed to a bit of heat, they will open straight away and they will die within a day or 2. I have been warned about getting marked with the quality of flowers so the fully bloomed iris was a bit of a worry. On the other hand, my orange lily hasn't opened yet and I would really really like them to be open. Aaah well... this is the life of a florist. I sms Hazel the night before about this and in the morning she rang me at 8:30am to see if there's a possibility I could get a replacement. The competition starts at 9am so I thought it was out of the question. Though I asked one of the stewards opinion about it and she said it looks fine. Phew...

The competition has been postponed to 9:30 because 3 of the participants weren't there and we thought that they might have been stuck in traffic. As it turns out they were just a no show, which was a bit annoying. My brain was so committed to start at 9am that I became so incredibly agitated  The few minutes before we start all of us were just standing around waiting. My stomach is churning, my hands are tingling and I was hyperventilating so much I thought I was going to faint. Argh! Thankfully the girl next to me, Naomi started talking to me and diverted my attention for a bit, until we heard someone yelled out "Start!"

I tried to move and think as fast as I could. I think one of the most difficult thing to do is trying to get perspective of the design because I can't really stand back and look. The general public was also there to see us work but I was so focused I couldn't see anything else apart from my flowers.  The technique I was unfamiliar and nervous about is glueing, and I have to glue all the blue florets for the stars. Hazel had briefed me about it so I just did exactly as she said and it worked. I did wasted time gluing a lot more flowers than I need because I had no clue of how much I need. How am I supposed to know these things? And speaking of being concerned of the quality of the irises, the blue orchids were bad news when I opened it- good thing I only used 5 florets in the end. I think dyed blue orchids are horrendous anyway. Gina reckons I should get extra marks  just to use them and making them look acceptable. The Xanadu leaves were also terrible but I didn't actually realize until after. The bag of moss that I got was also terrible, but I don't use them enough to realize that. I even thought, "Oh, so this is what commercial moss looks like. Ok well this is great cause it's really easy to pin!".  

I thought I finished everything when they yelled out "5 minutes!" so I walked around to check. I forgot to cover one of the glue spots with blue flowers at the back and quickly did that, and that's about what I had time for. Of course there are more things that I would have liked to fix but we only have 90 minutes....

I quickly tried to clean my area, but alas I forgot my dusting pan- which was one of the biggest mistake I made. My moss look so messy! My mouth was so dry and my head is spinning. So much stress and now it's all over in a split second! I'm supposed to be cleaning up but I had no idea what to do so I got distracted talking to spectators and putting left over blue florets on little girls hair... until Gina came and told us that we can put everything away in the back room.

So that's it, it's over. We finished at 11am on the dot. I gathered up with my new found friends and started circling their works. Oh wow... the amount of work and interpretations of fallen star by everyone else is so diverse and impressive. I really enjoyed being with them and talking about their concepts.

Tiny Tim 

Audrey Hepburn

Lance Armstrong

Heath Ledger

Michael Jackson

Judy Garland

Amy Winehouse

As soon as I saw the judges circling around our work I am out of there. I didn't want to see any more flowers. When I walked out of the flower pavilion, I realized that I was well and truly in some sort of a carnival. People, shows, rides, it's all very exciting but then I ended up paying $14 for a disgusting hot dog and a small drink. Oh well we were quite desperate for food. We actually had lunch with Maria, her daughter, Katrina and Michael which was really nice. During lunch Michael actually mentioned that my piece was his favorite. Katrina also said that even before she knew I did Van Gogh, she could already tell from when we were setting up the installation. I was so flattered and its very humbling actually. I think everyone realize that art comes first and winning comes in later.  

We had to be back by 2pm for the judges and so Greg, Theresa and I went exploring. We saw the free-style motorbike show, wood sawing comp, domestic animal competition, arts and craft tent. Oh man, it was phenomenal... I only wished it wasn't so hot and the food wasn't mind blowingly expensive.

I wasn't keen to go back to the pavilion. I hate competitions to begin with so it was hard to face reality. Nevertheless I was nervous to see the result. By the time I got there the rest of the contestants are standing next to their creations and the winner is being announced. Michael won highly commended with his Lance Armstrong, Maria won third with Heath Ledger's character of "The Joker", Sahar won 2nd with Michael Jackson. "...and the winner of the New South Wales 2013 Designz Cup is, Fionna Tamin with 'Starry Night'."

When I heard my name being called I kind of have this dream-like feeling like I was watching myself from the crowd. I felt like a rockstar for about 20 minutes onwards. There's cameras flashing everywhere, and everyone wanted to talk to me. I was really happy of course, but I was too tired to process the reality. All I wanted to do is cry but I have to keep smiling for the camera. I was so flattered when Maria came and hugged me, and then Michael- I really want to start crying then! I mean, they are competitors, but they are genuinely happy for me. I'm so utterly and completely moved by them. Gina called Hazel almost straight after the announcement. I can't believe that last week I thought I'd be lucky to just have the installation staying up, if Hazel didn't plant confidence in me on Wednesday I don't think I'd have much faith in myself to do this.

Glory aside, I have received some constructive feedback from David Burger about my piece. He said instead of just moss to cover the bottom of the board, he would've like to see the board covered in some material that resembles the brush strokes in the painting. Especially the moss that I use aren't very good quality. Luckily for me, everyone else's moss are in the same state as mine so I was excused. After receiving feedback from David, Gina was willing to reveal her comments which in my opinion is more valuable. She mentioned the quality of moss I used, which was bad luck, but then the Xanadu leaves that I used wasn't great either, which I didn't realize. I have to admit that I was too focused in figuring out how to place them that I forgot to inspect their quality. I also cut the really tall gymea leaves in half and use both half in the arrangement. Gina mention that in a florist it's Ok to do that because we're trying to save cost, but competition work is not about being efficient with materials. And then my parallel Molucca Balm is not really parallel so I have to make them face a certain direction. I did it subconsciously and made them facing out instead of in. Gina reckons it made the arrangement loose it's energy. And lastly, I used a banksia in one arrangement but forgot about it in the other 2 oasis which I agree, it was a super big mistake. Actually, the second I finished, I looked back to the pile of banksia behind me and thought, "Oh great... I totally forgot about them."  I remember that as I was doing the banksia, I somehow remembered to glue the paper daisy in the moon swirls and then forgot about the rest of the banksia after. Oh well, I do have issues staying calm under pressure, so I'm just happy that I didn't forget anything major. 

Picking Van Gogh's painting might have been lateral but I let the painting dictate my design, whether other people have to come up with their designs from scratch. Out of all the displays, Michaels' Lance Armstrong was my favorite. He ran out of time and didn't get to put more flowers in but I really like his concept and you can tell that he's done his research.

After the announcement Greg and I decided that we wanted to stay in the Easter show as much as we can even though we were exhausted. We stayed up to the rodeo show and left at 7:30pm. We arrived Canberra at 11:30pm. I was so exhausted from adrenaline and hardly any sleep. I closed my eyes and before I knew it I had to go to work. On Monday after work I was sorting out photos and writing up interviews, got over tired and couldn't sleep until 3am. I couldn't concentrate at work on Tuesday and felt very frustrated with myself. That night for dinner Greg decided to cook a roast. We didn't have dinner until 10pm and although I was very hungry all I want to do is sleep. When it was time to eat, Greg accidentally moved me while I was holding a boiling hot gravy and it spilled all over my left hand. It didn't hurt too much but I started crying because I'm over worked, hungry, my house is a chaos and I felt like an absolute mess.

But now it's all over. As I'm writing this I'm at my in laws farm for the Easter long weekend. I slept 12 hours last night and woke up a 11:30am this morning. My mum in law fed us very well in time and everyone leaves me alone with my tab writing this all day. This competition has been a really awesome adventure.