Joanna Game

‘What inspires me?’ 

I’ve been sitting with this question for a while, as it seems rather a big one, and it has been taking its time to cook.  

I think, on contemplating, I see it all as a journey. My earliest inspiration undoubtedly comes from my mother. My childhood was spent in the countryside, and I was greatly encouraged  to walk and notice. Taught all the names of the trees, wildflowers, fungi and generally encouraged to wonder at the beauty of the world around me. I always had a fist full of flowers, even on shopping trips to town, I would find something to pick from a crevice in a  wall, or a crack in the pavement.  

My environment continues to lead my work. When thinking about an arrangement, setting plays a huge part. Age and style of property, the colour of the walls, light levels: all inspire  and inform. The truth, though, is that I am probably most inspired by the countryside, and the seasonal changes it undergoes; fresh in the spring, sparse and sombre in the winter.  

After childhood and school, I moved to London, where I trained as a nurse. Flowers and  gardens were still a place I loved to be , and I yearned for a more creative career.  

During that time in the city, my absolute favourite place to be and inspiration was New Covent Garden flower market. I loved everything about it: the 4am starts, the traders banter,  bacon sandwiches, milky coffee, and the smell of early morning cigarette smoke - and the flowers. Buckets and buckets of colourful blooms, I wanted them all.  

Always in those days the most desirable find was the single bucket of something special, unusual, probably British, Aquilegia, foxgloves, the first sweet peas, a bucket of blowsy rain-battered Dahlia. It was usually hiding amongst the showier blooms and that was the bucket I wanted. It was worth being there early in the hope they might be yours to claim.  

My first work - now 25 years ago - was usually in big hotels, so was fairly corporate; big  charity events using glass vases filled with roses and lilies. But even then, my partner in  crime was pulling ivy from London walls and snipping bits from the garden. Wild nature was  still close to and part of my creativity.  

I think I would say it all started to fall in place when we left London. After 16 years and still  very much in love with that wonderful city I was ready for pastures new. We moved to  Dartmoor, and I started to grow my own flowers. This is when I really began to understand  what inspired me. Growing and picking has to be my greatest joy, I feel a real connection to the flowers I use in my arrangements. My garden, and growing, has become central to my  creative process. The time and care put into producing the ingredients gives me new respect for each wonky stem and perfect petal.  

I have a small cutting garden, with as much packed in as I can manage. Starting with bulbs in the spring, it takes me all the way to the last of the dahlias in November.  

The beginning of an arrangement always starts with one flower. You could even say it starts  with the seed, then the seedling, the mature plant, and finally the bloom. One inspiring bloom leads to a style, and then to a colour palette. A branch must have the perfect arch and quantity of leaf and a flower be just the right colour and size. If I can’t find everything I need  in the garden, I wander the Devon lanes and fields, searching for that special something that fits. Once I have my palette and style fixed, I choose a vessel, and begin.

Something new but gathering momentum is photography. I often spend quite sometime with  an arrangement after I have 'finished' it with my camera, looking for the perfect light to capture the flowers beauty and fragility.  

A bigger job – a wedding, for example, is a similar process. But a more commercial endeavour will always reign in creativity to a certain extent.  

So, having let the question bubble and simmer for a little while, I suppose my overriding  inspiration is growth: that of my garden, and of the countryside around me. The seasons changing light and mood. I would like to be able to say that I have a favourite and that I am a winter or a spring person but the truth is I am greedy and I love it all. 

I hope I can continue to grow – in every sense of the word – for many years to come. 

…

Joanna Game is a floral artist and grower working from her garden and studio in the Dartmoor national park in the west of the UK. Growing flowers in 12 8ft raised beds outside her kitchen door and arranging and photographing in her garden studio.