ROSEICAPILLA by Julia Rose

Art is the expression of those beauties and emotions that stir the human soul.

Howard Pyle

As a designer using flowers and botanicals as your medium, it does not matter how large or decadent looking your designs are, you do not have to feature only expensive designer flowers to create something amazing. Sweet little garden flowers will sing a song of love if your technique and composition are on point. I focus on colour and texture; these two elements alone make my heart sing.

If you create with passion people will feel it, from a simple vase, a box design, through to a grand entrance piece. This featured design, for example, evolved from discarded feathers and fallen branches that would otherwise be thrown on the compost heap.

Expressing Emotion - The Creative journey: Raw & Honest.

This piece was created at a time of personal heartbreak. Life had decided to throw me a few consecutive challenges and the final blow was my dear little Rescue Galah named Possum had just died. I had rescued her at the beginning of a challenging personal journey with IVF and she came into my life and distracted me. She filled me with joy. My journey with IVF failed, I was okay with this, as I had tried. My life was meant for other things.

When Possum passed away, it broke me in two and I could not do anything apart from CREATE ART, art for her memory and my healing. The day after she passed, I sat heavy and in tears, I headed out into the yard and I collected guinea fowl feathers, chicken feathers, sticks branches and fallen debris. I wanted to use raw and earthy tones to represent her wild and free nature. She was cheeky, her family visited her daily, she walked around with the chickens, geese and guinea fowl. At sunset, she would sneak back into our house via the dog door and sleep inside.

I laid a sheet on the floor of my studio, put on some music and created the Roseicapilla Collection. Eolophus roseicapilla is the species name for Galah.

I created Floral Couture, weaving, stitching and binding, bringing into play all of my technical skills as a florist and I combined them with pure imagination and PASSION. I was challenging myself, making certain the composition & design elements were grand enough to represent the impact Possum had on me and my life.

I let the art pour through my fingers. I was obsessive;

I created an entire collection of grand and wonderful pieces. My art had healed me, and I could sit with my memories in peace and gratitude for having had Possum in my life.

To showcase, I invited a collection of my favourite creative people to the farm to bring the collection to life, photographer, makeup, hair, model and fashion. We roamed the paddocks creating, we laughed, we were inspired, we caught the magic! And shared it with the world.

The ROSEICAPILLA collection graced the covers of magazines and featured in an Art Exhibition. People connected with it. They do not know the tale behind the design, it's interpretive and subjective to the viewers lived experience and their perceptions of the work as is the case for any art piece.

Create your own happiness.