DETROIT — The ephemeral installation that filled an abandoned house with flowers last weekend was over before the blossoms had time to wilt, but it leaves behind the seeds of a plan to keep the property blooming for years.
The Flower House, created by florist Lisa Waud and several dozen collaborators from around the country, opened in the Detroit enclave of Hamtramck for about 2,000 visitors. The brief exhibition is only the first stage in Waud’s plan for the site, which will eventually be home to a flower farm.
“I opened up the door, and it was full of clothes and mail and broken furniture and all kinds of things, and that’s when I realized that it wasn’t just a campus for our work. … and realized that I was responsible for the house even after the project was complete.”
Knives and forks were swept up into a wild cyclone sculpture that took over an empty upstairs room, and fresh peppers and tomatoes spilled out of kitchen cabinets. In the bathroom, flower chains replaced the shower curtain and a roll of birch bark spun where toilet paper used to hang.
The house will be deconstructed, a process that salvages materials so they can be reused, and the leftover blooms will become mulch for dahlias and peonies she’ll grow for her business, Pot & Box.
Some have questioned the value of tearing down a house after pouring so much time and effort into it. But to Waud, it’s her individual way of growing her business, putting down roots in the city and bringing a little life back to the block.
“We’re bettering our amazing city,” Waud said Friday at a dinner held to promote American flower farmers, on ground that will soon hold peony beds.
“We’re doing creative reuse of buildings and land,” she continued. “We’re celebrating immense collaboration and generosity, we’re celebrating the simple idea of beauty, we’re celebrating local and national pride for our farms and we’re celebrating rebirth.”
Read it from the source and check out pictures of the house!