(2017 February) From hydrangeas, roses, baby’s breaths, forget-me-nots, sages and cottons to bouquets, headdresses, corsages, wedding favours and do it yourself kits - the explosion of dried flowers at studio goodmonday (JCCAC Unit L4-05) feasts the eyes and fills the heart with joy.
Not your usual florist, the flowers here are bathed in a sepia glow; very still, very calm and most certainly slender, having waned by memories and time. “This one here has air-dried for three days while the one there has been drying since last week - give them two more days and they should be ready.” Flower lover and founder of goodmonday - Chili Wong Ching-yi introduces her flowers to us like cherished friends, telling us how each of them came to the state they are. “They can be stored for at least two to three years, and if you take care of them properly, they may even last a lifetime.”
J:JCCAC
C: Chili Wong Ching-yi
J: We can already smell the floral fruitiness from afar and even more so upon entering the studio. There are flowers and tools all over the walls, ceiling and floor, and spread out on the shelves and desk. I saw you work round the clock in the previous month, but we also noticed many happy people leaving JCCAC with the bouquets you made. They all looked so pleased!
C: I am glad people like our creations. It was the graduate season earlier on, afterwards it was Christmas and the New Year, so there was quite a demand for our bouquets. We had to work through the night on many occasions to meet the orders, many from companies and brands for bespoke festive corporate gifts in the form of small floral decorations. Other than creating tailor-made designs and gifts, we also encourage people to come join us at one of our workshops or try their own hands at home with one of our do-it-yourself kits.
I am grateful for my collaborator Pat’s (Pat Tang) support in helping me achieve what goodmonday came to be today. I am also thankful for JCCAC which provided us not only the opportunity to use this studio but also the arena to expand our network; many of our customers know us through events at JCCAC or its website and social media. We do feel that having our studio at JCCAC works like a vote of confidence.
J: For participation in JCCAC Festival during December 2016, you have designed an intriguing exhibition on one of our blue walls named “Floral Dialogue”. It responded to the theme of “dialogue” for the festival and became quite a popular spot for social media posts. How did dried flowers become the medium of your artistic expression?
C: I have always liked flowers, especially the aesthetics of their appearance. Fresh flowers are beautiful but they do not last long and hence are wasteful. The fresh floral wedding decorations are the perfect example of flowers going to waste before their beauty expires. They still have a lot of life and value in them when they get thrown away. That is why I wanted to collect and turn them into dried flowers and extend their beauty for at least another two to three years - and if handled properly, their beauty can last a lifetime.
J: There is a sense of helplessness and mourning in wilted flowers, but you try to lengthen our appreciation for them by carefully air drying them when still in bloom. It is quite a romantic and positive concept.
C: We hope so. Floral arts can also bring people together and connect with the community. I am a great fan of community projects which bring people into interaction with each other. So we do not hold workshops only in our studios but also at community centres. They cover floral art, tie-dye and paper making. We meet people from different backgrounds and all walks of life, including many housewives and some under-privileged people. When a large number of orders come in and Pat and I could not handle them all by ourselves, we would seek their help to air dry fresh flowers and fruits. The pay is not a lot as we cannot afford much, but still it meant that they could make a little pocket money by doing something which is fun for them and helpful to us. With their support, we managed to deliver the orders and most importantly, make people happy. We believe this is a win-win situation for all parties.
In the process of seeking suppliers of suitable fresh flowers and materials, we also met some florists who then became our friends. We started as laymen and learnt so much knowledge and technique about floral art through them. They were never tiring of our endless questions and often went out of their ways to meet our special requests. Once we unintentionally owed one of them several thousand dollars in goods payment because we have simply forgotten about it. But they were so trusting and did not mention it! We only realised and rectified it, to our great embarrassment, when settling the next bill months later! We were so touched by their kindness and support. Sometimes we show our appreciation by bringing them snacks and treats, just like between friends.
J: It is the small good deeds that go into people’s hearts! You mentioned you were a “layman”, so was ending up working with this creative medium something completely unintentional?
C: I knew nothing about floral art. After Form 5, I studied Visual Communication at Hong Kong Institute of Vocational Education (IVE). Then I worked at City Magazine for about a year before continuing my study at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) School of Design, graduating from a major in Communication Design in 2015. Since many of my friends also studied design, I was referred freelance graphic design work. I found the most fascinating thing about design’s relation to life is its function in society; design is about solving problems and making people’s lives better.
Even though my specialty is in graphic and web design, I have always had a passion for community art projects. I wanted to construct relationships between people and help improve their living conditions through design (applied arts). I came across and was deeply impressed by the concept and operation of The Big Issue magazine in the UK, which I came across while on a study trip there. The magazine aims to help vulnerable people through its social business model, based on a hand up not a handout, working not begging concept. It is sold legally through the homeless or the socially-deprived to enable them to earn a legitimate income - by allowing them to keep half of the full/selling price. This helps empower them through boosting their confidence and sense of responsibility, so that they can take better control of their lives in order to address the root causes of the issues that led to their predicament. This empathy based community programme inspired me to design a series of posters and products to induce a dyslexia experience for the viewer, as an effort to enhance people’s awareness of the difficulties of such sufferers. The series then became my graduation work at IVE.
J: From design, community projects to floral arts, how do you manage to shift from one to another?
C: I think it was a gradual progress from my love for tea with flower infusions, which led me to conduct a research project on the recycling possibilities of brewed tea leaves when I was studying at PolyU. Reusing tea leaves became the theme of my graduation artwork and the start of the “teamade” project. To maximise the use of tea leaves, I use them to make practical and delicate household objects such as recycled paper, tie-dyed cloths, hypoallergenic soaps and many more. Such products not only exude a pleasant hint of tea but also promote environmental awareness and the concept of slow living.
Following the principle of lifelong design, my ultimate goal is to design things and products that can be lifetime re-usable. This runs against society’s current materialistic needs for overconsumption, which creates unnecessary waste, such as with the replacement of mobile phones every two or three years. Using tea leaves and dried flowers in my work is just the starting point of sharing my concept.
J: In this era when plans do not even catch up with changes, it can be hard to believe if anything can last a lifetime. How do you retain your confidence in your own ideas?
C: I have been given such a good chance to start this, I have no excuse to not make the most of it and carry on. In the foreseeable future, we plan to develop the application of tea and flowers in making vases, drinks and food. What we most want to do is to host more workshops to promote human interaction, spread our concepts and inspire new ideas for improving our lives.
The beauty of applied arts lies in its ability to solve problems through different media and methods. Hence, I do not exclusively work with flowers. I am also interested in pottery and have been making tiny pots and vases, which inspires me to think of the possibilities to explore different media. I am so glad that Reed (the ceramist running I-Kiln Studio Shek Kip Mei at JCCAC Unit L3-03) visited us the other day as it opens up for us opportunities to work with different artists and media. We will also participate in an art exhibition, titled “Paper Says – The ever changing role of paper in our lives”, presented by JCCAC in March, in which we will create with paper. Through exploring the value and meaning of paper in this digital age, we rethink about the core values and beliefs in our time.
J: May your blossoming ambitions come to full bloom.
Recommended Activity
Exhibition “Paper Says – The ever changing role of paper in our lives”
Date︰15 - 21 / 3 / 2017
Time︰10:00 - 22:00
Venue︰JCCAC Central Courtyard
Please click here to download《JCCAC PROGRAMMES》(2017 Feb issue)
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