The artistry of floristry, collective power and finding winter solace in pasta-making
A conversation with sustainable florist and flower farmer, Sophie Erskine
It’s not often that I hit a creative block but that certainly has been the case this January. It’s taken me a good couple of weeks to feel creatively inspired again and to re-centre after the festive break. Thankfully, that seems to have passed now and has paved the way for this piece we are sharing today. It’s been buried in my drafts for the past couple of months and I so loved re-visiting it and finally writing it up - I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I loved writing it.
Psst. Our second printed issue of Dulcify Journal has now published! Across 140 pages, we’ve showcased some of the incredible talents of the Scottish food and coffee scene. Crafted thoughtfully over a year, our second issue contains a mixture of photography features, slow journalism, personal narratives and profiles of artists.
One of the earliest pieces we published was a conversation with Julia Kirk from Wild Gorse Studios. It’s a conversation that has stayed with me ever since, sparking a new-found curiosity and awareness of floristry, particularly when it comes to seasonality. Since then, I’ve been on the look-out for other local growers and florists that share a similar mindset and to learn more about this beautiful art-form.
Sophie Erskine
One such florist is Sophie Erskine, a sustainable florist and flower farmer that happens to be based not far from me in Edinburgh. I’d seen some of Sophie’s work online and was instantly drawn to the way she arranges flowers - there is a wonderful, purposeful wildness to her work, a quality that feels free and effortless - which undoubtedly is a testament to her skill and craft as a florist and as an artist. I reached out to Sophie to ask her about her life as a florist, being part of a sustainable flower movement and floristry as an art-form in itself.
Finding her path
I am always so fascinated in how people find, carve and fine-tune their paths into creative industries and it always feels like a very natural way to start a conversation. Often, it’s an encouraging reminder that there is no right or wrong way and that paths can evolve and change, or simply just take time to form. The latter was true for Sophie, who told me, ‘I never really knew what I wanted to do and I never really felt I was particularly great at anything.’ Thinking back to her school years, she remembers always really enjoying the more creative subjects - whether that was art, drama or music - but not excelling in the same way in her other subjects. Sophie told me, ‘I didn’t go to university because I didn’t think I was good enough - my grades were completely fine but it was a voice in my head that told me otherwise.’ While she was deciding what she would like to pursue, Sophie took jobs in retail and hospitality - meandering between the two but not feeling as though either were quite the right fit.
The catalyst to pursuing floristry came in the form of a magazine article. The article was a day in the life of a florist and it immediately sparked her interest. She found some work experience and eventually ended up being paid for her work. She told me, ‘When I was at school and thinking of a creative career, you tend to think of art but floristry was never on my radar.’ She continued, ‘It just clicked - I think it also helped that I found some really good friends.’ Being in a friendship group of like-minded, creative people helped Sophie finally feel as though she could just be herself and floristry felt very natural to her - she learnt fast and felt for the first time really keen to learn and push herself further.
Having had the privilege of talking with a number of creatives now - and gradually seeing myself as one too - I’ve realised that often creatives are looking to find something that acts as an extension of themselves and often the challenge is identifying what that medium is.
Openly, Sophie told me, ‘It’s only now that I’m beginning to admit to myself that floristry is art and allowing myself to see myself as an artist. I never thought I’d be able to be that.’
Ochre Botanical Studios
As well as being a freelance florist, Sophie is also part of Ochre Botanical Studios, which is an Edinburgh-based collective of seven studio florists (Julie Cook, Marion Sandwith, Sophie Erskine, Sarah Walker, Fiona Hay, Cynthia Fan and Claire Sylvester). Together, they provide floral and styling services for weddings, events, installations and collaborations of all kinds, using flowers they’ve either grown themselves in their small Granton plot or from their network of local growers. I asked Sophie how this collective came about and she explained how, like a lot of creative projects, it came into being during lockdown.
With the world standing still, they were lucky enough to have a quiet moment to think and dream about flowers and the way they design with them. When restrictions allowed, they all met up at one of their homes. Sophie recalls, ‘We put this giant piece of paper down on Julie’s kitchen table and we wrote down every single thing that came into our heads, to try and come up with a concept of what Ochre could look like.’ She continued, ‘At the time, we didn’t know if we just wanted to do floristry or whether we wanted to look into the world of growing flowers as well’. They’d each had the pleasure of working with beautiful, locally grown British flowers over many years and for this reason, they felt that they needed to embrace their dream of growing their own flowers and experience the rewards that could bring together.
Despite none of them having much experience with growing for cut flowers, it felt right to them and was a way of reclaiming some of the creativity that had been taken away from them during the pandemic. A few months after coming to this decision, they serendipitously found their space at Granton community walled gardens and decided to give growing a go. Now a couple of years in, their main growing season is late March until October and because they have a very small-scale plot, they only grow the things that they love. Here I asked Sophie if she could tell me a little about the land and she explained, ‘The land had been abandoned. It had been a working walled garden in the past - I think in the 1930’s - owned by Mr and Mrs Smith who ran a cut flower kitchen garden but then it was sold to the council and remained untouched for many years.’ Sophie described the plot as having ‘seven foot weeds and very pesky brambles with deep roots’. The garden is still very much a (weedy) work in progress but they have really made leaps and bounds since becoming care-takers of their plot.
From here, I asked Sophie what it’s like to be part of a collective of florists. She told me, ‘It’s super collaborative - we share an email and Instagram and we voice our interest when enquiries come our way and it all gets divided up really fairly.’ Continuing, she told me that one of the biggest benefits of being part of a collective is that they can support each other, take on exciting large scale projects and share the workload and joy of both making and growing beautiful flowers.
On finding inspiration
Sophie explained that within floristry, inspiration definitely comes from what’s available.
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