Story by Audrey Kim, Staff Reporter
Package by Zara Samdani, Co-Managing Editor
Students from Conestoga’s Flower Show Club will present their work at the Philadelphia Flower Show this year. Under the show’s theme, “United by Flowers,” the club created pressed flower mosaics through one of the show’s artistic classes. Students in grades three to 12 will compete for a blue ribbon in several entry categories while exhibiting their art at the show.
The Flower Show Club students are competing under Youth Artistic Class Category 146, “What’s your story?”, which celebrates heritage through a framed arrangement of pressed plants.
The Flower Show Club at Tredyffrin/Easttown Middle School, run by art teacher Khara Flint, helped inspire sophomores Sarah Bernholdt, Kate Khugaeva and Ada Lavelle to establish a similar club at Conestoga this year.
“This year’s competition was individual, so you got to express yourself,” Khugaeva said. “I thought that it was both good and bad. It gave so much freedom that it was hard to think of a specific thing to make.”
The process of making pressed flower mosaics and submitting art started in October and ended in January.
First, the students bought and pressed the flowers into books. After the flowers finished drying, they traced their sketches into mat boards and glued the flowers on, starting from the background of the art to the front. In January, they sent pictures of their works in progress to the Philadelphia Flower Show’s panel of judges. When their projects finished on Feb. 15, they gave the mosaics to Flint to send to the show to be displayed.
“We buy flowers and press them in books for two to three weeks,” Bernholdt said. “The theme comes out sometime in early fall, so we usually brainstorm ideas and make sketches for our projects.”
Bernholdt, Khugaeva and Lavelle made mosaics of a reading girl, a film camera and a record player, respectively. When searching for inspiration for what to make, they looked toward hobbies and interests.
“I’m really into vinyls, so (the mosaic) is my record player and a vinyl playing with things I like (that are) coming out of it,” Lavelle said. “I thought of things I really liked and things that define me in a way.”
After deciding on a topic, the sophomores cut the dried flower petals and leaves to glue them on a canvas. While creating their mosaic, they said that they faced a few challenges along the way, such as flowers breaking and a lack of materials.
“One challenge we often faced was having enough of certain flowers,” Bernholdt said. “If we run out of a certain color, we don’t always have time to buy or press more.”
The club’s mosaics are on display at the Philadelphia Flower Show, which will run from March 2 to March 10 this year at the Philadelphia Convention Center. The club’s mosaics are displayed for attendees of the show.
Audrey Kim can be reached at [email protected].
Zara Samdani can be reached at [email protected].
