The Functional Art of Flowers

Nationally renowned ceramicist and gardener, Frances Palmer, presents Life with Flowers: Inspiration and Lessons from the Garden, her most recent publication on how her two parallel practices – throwing pottery and flower gardening and arranging – simultaneously exist to create a functional form of art, one indoors in the studio on the wheel, and one outdoors in the garden. With beginnings as a potter creating the forms of vases and vessels, and later shifting to the vegetation stored within, Palmer will share a peek into her signature creative process that has landed her in publications such as House & Garden, Neptune Papers, Vogue and The World of Interiors.

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About the Book

Frances Palmer has spent nearly four decades creating work that has caught the attention of ceramics lovers, designers, writers, and fellow artists around the world. But there is a whole other vibrant side of her creative life that she’s equally passionate about, devoted to, and expert in—flower gardening and arranging. They are two parallel practices, one indoors in the studio, throwing pots and vases to elevate the flowers, and one outdoors in the garden, raising the most extraordinary flowers to inspire new pots and vases. Filled with the author’s stunning photography (a third and equally important parallel practice), Life with Flowers is an invitation to both her garden, where we learn all about the planting and arranging of flowers, and her artistic process, showing us how she thinks about flowers, seasons, the land, beauty, form, and everything else that goes into her creative life.

About the Author

A celebrated author, ceramist, gardener and photographer, Frances Palmer trained as an art historian at Columbia University and for the past 38 years, has focused on the process of changing ideas into form in her functional work – handmade ceramics. Her work is represented in leading private craft and contemporary art collections around the world and has been exhibited and sold internationally including at Fotografiska, Neue Galerie, Object & Thing and Wave Hill. Palmer has been featured in publications such as House & Garden, Neptune Papers, Vogue and The World of Interiors. Her first book, Life in the Studio: Inspiration and Lessons on Creativity was published by Artisan Books in 2020. Her second book, Life with Flowers: Inspiration and Lessons from the Garden, also from Artisan Books, is dedicated to the subject of flowers in her work and will be published in May 2025. In this new volume, Palmer celebrates her love of gardening and her approach to planting in waves, ensuring there are always beautiful booms for her to photograph in her vases.