Many of you have probably heard of the annual Melbourne International Flower and Garden Festival (MIFGS), a 5 day celebration of all things horticultural, held in the heritage building and grounds of the Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne, Australia.
One of the Australian state groups, the Victorian Floral Art Association, conducts a competition for its member groups as part of this festival and offers a space for a display exhibit to showcase the Australian Floral Art Association (AFAA). I have previously staged a display on behalf of AFAA (click here to see it) and was again privileged to do this in March 2022.
This is a design that requires some extra planning as I travel to the venue by plane and tram to stage the design the day before the festival opens to the public and I will not be there for take down when the festival closes five days later, leaving the structure for the Victorian Floral Art Association to use themselves.
This year the theme was “Silver Threads” to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the festival so silver needed to be used in the design. I decided on a silver threaded structure that could be constructed from modules of pre-prepared shapes.
The prototype for my design structure was a timber rectangular frame with stringing on three sides. This image shows how to measure and setup the nails/tacks to support the stringing. (The white strip of paper is a measuring template for the nails.)
As the design developed (on paper), I favoured a triangular shape rather then the rectangle and proceeded to complete a corner stringing pattern with silver aluminium wire. You can see the step by step technique for String Art in Floral Designs by clicking here.
The design is staged on a plinth so it needs to be interesting from every angle. I have used a black floral foam brick on a black plastic plate as the base with silver dollar eucalypt foliage in radial placement.
The completed wire and timber triangles were then added at random angles and the design completed by minimal placement of white alstromeria.
