Floriography: Bridging Traditional and Contemporary Forms of Communication by Maine College of Art

Floriography

Bridging Traditional and Contemporary Forms of Communication

Floriography

Bridging Traditional and Contemporary Forms of Communication A 2020 Thesis Process Book

Anna Wight

To my friends: Angelica, Amethyst, Small White Bell-flower, Rose and Volkamenia.

Table of Contents Introduction Picking a topic Doing Research Gathering Inspiration Managing a Blog Making Work The Pandemic The Projects Final Thoughts

Introduction My thesis has been staged as an exploration. I explored the specific topic of floriography but I also explored the understandings of communication and how it functions within society. Floriography was an interest of mine back when I was younger but I never had the opportunity to do proper research on it. This thesis project Thesis has provided me that opportunity and I was able to make deeper connections between floriography and the world around me.

Floriography: Bridging Traditional and Contemporary Forms of Communication

Picking a Topic Deciding on a topic was honestly a year-long process. I remember fondly that during the spring semester of my junior year during miniresearch presentations, Margo would respond with “That’s a thesis topic!” I made a note of every time she said that. Picking a topic was a daunting task. I would be working on this thesis for a long time so I had to make sure that whatever I picked would keep my interest for months. During the winter break, I spent a lot of time writing a multitude of lists. I had a note in my phone entitled “What Do I Even Like?” which was a very long list of my interests. Another note I had was a series of art and design movements that I was curious about. After the months of brainstorming, I had a list of seven ideas: linguistics, biomimicry, hyper objects, a dog sanctuary brand, color theory, a continuation of a previous project,and the question, “what is fantasy?” All of them truly held my interest, yet none of them really felt right. I struggled to come up with other ideas, and soon my thesis proposal was due. I had planned on going with branding the dog sanctuary (owning an animal sanctuary is my retirement dream) but then I had an epiphany at three in the morning the night before the proposal was due. Floriography. I honestly have no clue what had brought this up in my head because I was in the bathroom at the time that I thought of it. Floriography is the use of flowers to send encoded messages between people. This is something I had learned about back in middle school from an assigned reading. I had taken great interest in it but had never really done indepth research about it. This was a perfect topic. 12

I have always taken inspiration for my art from nature. My family comes from a line of farmers, and we are semi-avid outdoorsmen. We spent much of our family trips camping in the Adirondacks or kayaking around the various lakes and rivers of New York. When I was younger, and just getting more serious in my art practice, I would go to the fields around my home and pick wildflowers to draw. Often when I was done drawing the flowers, I would give them to a family member. My mother has made many attempts at gardening, but she doesn’t have a green thumb. My grandparents, on the other hand, have always had amazing gardens. I loved walking around their yards and looking at all the different flowers they would grow. One of my favorite things to do is going to the local greenhouses to help my mother pick out flowers for my grandparents’ birthdays, anniversaries, etc. It’s interesting for me to think about how I’ve been sending them messages more than love and appreciation through more than just the gesture of presenting them flowers. I think Floriography is also relevant to my practice of graphic design due to the communication aspect. As a graphic designer, I explore language in its different forms, visuals, and functions and I see that as an essential part of my practice. Graphic design is all about communicating ideas and facilitating interactions between people. Graphic design also has a wonderful ability to exist in the most niche of places and that allows me to create designs revolving around nature in a variety of ways. I was really looking forward to discovering a topic that combined a lifelong love and my future profession.

Floriography: Bridging Traditional and Contemporary Forms of Communication

This is an extra hand bound sketchbook I had on hand that I utilised specifically for keeping notes on thesis. I have many pages of crit notes, lists, and random thoughts that occured throughout the semester.

Doing Research The research stage is probably the most important stage of my design process. You need to know what you’re talking about before you can start making work. Luckily in this era, a simple google search will lead to a fruitful gathering of information. That is exactly where I started my process. Before, I really only hada sentence’s worth of information about floriography. I didn’t even know that it was called floriography. I had done initial research for my proposal and had started some initial questions. How can I take what I learn from my research and transform it into a new system of communication, or be able to create a place for this traditional form of communication into modern cultures? What needs to be in place in order to have this be an effective form

of communication? Is this traditional form of communication relevant in this digital age? In order to answer these questions, I had to look at how we communicate today and how previous generations of society had communicated. A lot of my research led back to the Victorian era as floriography as a practice peaked in that time period. I read a few accounts of it existing in Egyptian and Indian communities before then but most of the information revolved around the Victorians. The first discovery I found was the multitude of floral dictionaries that were made. The dictionaries were crucial to this practice since there are too many flowers in the world to memorize all of the meanings. So a large portion of my research was actually reading through these dictionaries and deciphering how they were being used. When I say that flowers have meanings I learned that they aren’t exact translations. Most flowers are symbols of general feelings or situations. For example, the foxglove translates to insincerity. Some flowers can have a sentence tied to it, like the garden daisy which translates to “I partake your sentiments.” At least, that is what it translates to according to the particular dictionary I based my research on. A common problem that was brought up was how there were many different versions of dictionaries and if two people were trying to send messages with different versions there was a large chance of miscommunication. Another way miscommunication could happen is in the way that a single flower could have multiple meanings. For example, the scarlet geranium means both comforting, and stupidity. So without another context, that flower could present mixed messages. The way flowers were presented could also change the meaning. A single rose is a representation

Floriography: Bridging Traditional and Contemporary Forms of Communication

@awightdesigns Continuing with research into my thesis topic. The beginnings of project one includes looking at floral dictionaries from the Victorian Era and deciphering what everything means

of love whereas a daily rose translates to “thy smile I aspire to”, and a garland of roses translates to “reward of virtue.” So just like how in modern society a gift of flowers could show sympathy or love or sorrow based on how they were presented the same idea was prevalent back then. Doing all of this research really evolved my thesis from a focus on flowers to a focus on language and communication through flowers. I really started to think about what goes into

communication and what aspects of society really affect how people interact. Various flowers have been used as powerful symbols for centuries, whether that be in literature, cinema, art, etc. All of which greatly influence how people interact with each other. You will often hear things about how the media controls a lot of the knowledge and information available to people. Newspapers, magazines, news channels, websites, social media, all different forms of media and all different sources people turn to 15

learn about what is going on in the world. I was interested in how flowers took part in all of those media, and what kind of messages went along with their roles. Interestingly a lot of the symbolism of flowers in media match up to the given definitions found in the floral dictionaries. A conclusion I came to is that the meaning of flowers has become intuitive or more subconsciously accepted over the centuries of humans’ interaction with them. Flowers acted as an integral form of symbolism in many cultures, from the Greeks and Persians, all the way up to modern America. Various flowers became symbols based on their physical attributes and different uses. The Egyptians recognized the lotus flower or water lily as an important symbol of rebirth and regeneration. This was due to its petals opening in the morning and closing in the night, which was representative of the sun. This also gave the flower a tie to the sun god Atum-Ra, and this led to the flower holding such high regard in the Egyptian culture. Within the Greek culture, poppies represented the god Hypnos, who was the god of sleep. Poppies contain opium, which was used as a pain reliever in the ancient worlds and was often employed to induce sleep. This pattern of flowers and plants serving as representations of religious entities and themes would be carried through time and many other cultures. It is interesting to think how this pattern could fit into contemporary forms of communication. Floriography as a form of communication predates the Victorian era (1837-1901). Although it predates this era, the practice flourished during that time. “Among the many rules and customs, there were expected behaviors that prohibited outright flirtations, questions, or conversations between others.” Flower 16

dictionaries were starting to be printed and distributed so that the meaning of various plants, flowers, and herbs could be better understood. It became popular for people to utilize these dictionaries in order to send coded messages to each other within flower arrangements. This form of communication allowed for a type of expression that would be frowned upon within the strict standards of Victorian society.

That each flower, sent or carried to its destination, had its own, and known, meaning was a source of pleasurable communication for them, needed and heeded. What better way to say ‘Beware!’ or ‘Someone loves you,’ than with a poem hidden in the heart of a flower? The notion of discreet, forbidden messages is summarized as written by Dorothea Tanning who in 1997 started an art project where she would create paintings of new flowers and send the paintings to writers (Figures 1-2). The writers would name the new flowers and create poetry based off of them, which showed direct correlations between art, language, and flowers as symbols. The flowers became representations of the emotions the writers felt while looking at the paintings. Communication is an integral part to how a society lives. And as society evolves, so do the methods of communication. From oral communication, to written language and even to the development of the internet, humans have always expressed a need to be able to express their thoughts. As previously stated, the Victorians used floriography as a way to send messages that otherwise would have been seen as against etiquette.

Floriography: Bridging Traditional and Contemporary Forms of Communication

Etiquette of the Victorian Era demanded attention to subtleties and doing the proper thing depending on the situation, circumstances, and the company of those around you. Among the many rules of conversation, it was often considered impolite to outright ask or imply something, especially if it may offend others. I found it interesting how this quote shows how language is so intrinsically tied into a culture and can be a reflection of the times. That same goes for how our culture now is being represented in what is referred to as ‘text lingo’, and various memes or trends from the internet that define our culture. In a way, this whole practice is reminiscent of text messaging. Both forms of communication are meant for private messages and allow for more to be said than what society would allow. An issue that both of these methods share is a lack of diction, or vocal cues that helps clue the receiver on what the intent of the statement is. Many flowers have multiple meanings, and

often the meanings are conflicting. “To one recipient, a particular nosegay might send her over the moon with joy. The exact same nosegay in the hands of another recipient might bring her to tears.” There have been many articles over the years since the invention of instant messaging that speak to the lack of diction in this digital mode of communication. With historic floriography, there is also the issue that not all floral dictionaries matched and so both sender and receiver had to have the same dictionary in order to have the same understanding. Previous context and relationships between the people play a big role in being able to understand messages in both instances as well. In contemporary culture, it is still commonplace to gift bouquets of flowers. However, the art of picking them has changed. Nowadays, we base what flowers to give on aesthetics and the preferences of the recipient. Not to say that I have anything against this practice, but I believe there is a relation between it and presenting flowers during a ceremony. There is a sentiment being shared in the act itself that provides an emotional quality that, at times, can outweigh the sentiments of a read message. So do the flowers actually have to have a meaning in order for the practice of floriography to exist and succeed in contemporary culture? “Perhaps we need it now, another language of flowers, one for us, for now, an urgent pause, however brief.” The idea of bridging traditional and contemporary forms of communication could lead to the creation of a new language. One that is able to withstand contemporary standards while maintaining the charm of the past. To attempt this project with the subject of floriography, where flowers are rich in meaning and various cultural significance, will allow for a breadth of exploration. 17

Floriography: Bridging Traditional and Contemporary Forms of Communication

Gathering

Inspiration During the research phase I was also busy gathering visual inspiration. Pinterest was a vital source of inspiration for me. I looked at different photography stylesand different styles of flower arranging. I put together two different mood boards just to start thinking of different aesthetics I would like my final exhibition to have. One was more traditional, and vintage with warmer neutral colors and a formal serif typeface. The other I classified as modern and elegant with pale cool tones and a bolder typeface. In the beginning I attempted to create a combination of the two thinking it would follow the theme of my thesis, combining old and new, but I think the end product of each project ended up going the more modern and elegant route. Previously mentioned was my use of pinterest where I created a thesis mood board and pinned many pins related to my topic. Quite a few of the pins gave me inspiration for the photos I ended up taking and using in some of my projects. Other than pinterest I recieved many links and screenshots from friends about various posts on social media that related to floriography. This was very appreciated and proved to be helpful on multiple occasions. Another way I gathered inspiration was visiting a couple of museums. The Portland Museum of Art held their annual Art in Bloom art show, where florists create arrangements based off of the works of art featured in the museums. It was inspiring visually more than conceptually. I also lucked out when the seniors went on our New York City trip and we visited 20

the Cooper Hewitt museum. The museum had an exhibit called Nature by Design on display. It showcased many forms of art that contained nature, mainly flowers, as the subject. Another visually inspiring display that did help with the historical context essay. I take a lot of influence from my physical surroundings and my interests at the time of creation. Even things such as silly conversations with my friends can spark ideas for new projects. That being said, my influences and my works are constantly evolving and taking new forms and I look forward to each new inspiration and work that I am motivated to create in the future.

Floriography: Bridging Traditional and Contemporary Forms of Communication

Managing a blog The idea of keeping a blog is not foreign to me as I grew up in the age of social media. That does not mean I am good at it however. Like with most of my social media, my thesis blog was fed sporadic posts with loose categorization. Even now it mostly holds tweets with links to various youtube videos and articles that I reference with research. I would every now and then tweet quick thoughts or notes to myself when my notebook wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t on hand. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s safe to say that nothing on my thesis twitter will be going viral anytime soon.

MakingWork A piece of advice Charles and David made sure to give us all in the beginning of the semester was to just start making work. The thinking can come later, but the making needs to start as soon as possible. They gave us an exercise to get us back into the mode of making after winter break. We were assigned to make black and white typographic posters that showed what our thesis would be about. This started by narrowing our whole thesis down to one or two sentences and designing around that. I went through quite a few variations before coming upon the one I went with.

Floriography: Bridging Traditional and Contemporary Forms of Communication

Is this how you become a photo major?

Floriography: Bridging Traditional and Contemporary Forms of Communication

The first project to submit for the fulfillment of the thesis was a section of what I thought an updated or modern day floral dictionary might look like. Most of the dictionaries I did research on were written with Victorian speak and I wanted to bring the books up to date with more modern lingo. The next project that came about were postcards, again this was looking at how to incorporate an older method of communicating into modern society. Not many people still participate in snail mail and I was looking for ways to make it more interesting for the audience through floriography. These postcards were hand illustrated using watercolors because I wanted to test out a different feel for these compared to the dictionary. I then moved onto thinking of how I could design an app where the user would be able to type out a message they want and have it generate a bouquet to send to a recipient. I then decided to buy a large amount of flowers to take photos of. The photo shoot inspired a series of posters with minimal type showcasing the meanings of flowers, which then turned into business card like objects that people could hand out like compliments. I also attempted a project trying to explain my thoughts on how society, communication and floriography all were connected but it never really came to fruition.

All of the projects were worked on kind of at the same time. After a while of working on a project I do get bored and having multiple projects going kept my interest. I also enjoyed experimenting with the different modes of making, even if that presented the challenge of making the work act as a cohesive body of work. Not all of the projects worked out but within the frame of exploration the failures were taken in with appreciation for the attempt. Even now Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m still unsure if what Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve created has truly answered what I was set to find out. I will most likely keep coming back to these projects and maybe making more to continue this exploration.

These illustrations were a much needed break from staring at my laptop. These will also be the first illustrations of my own that I will feature in my design work.

Floriography: Bridging Traditional and Contemporary Forms of Communication

The Projects

Floriography: Bridging Traditional and Contemporary Forms of Communication

Floral dictionary This was the first project I planned on making due to how vital it is within floriography. The majority of floral dictionaries are written in Victorian speak which by now is fairly outdated. I struggled to understand many of the phrases that were listed in my reference dictionary. So the first step of this project was doing research on Victorian language and creating an understanding on how the flowers were being used back then. I then translated those meanings into modern language, or ‘millennial speak.’ Of course this translation comes from my perspective and could be subjective on what people think the correct translation would be. A full dictionary would’ve taken the whole semester so I’ve chosen a few of my favorite translations to create a sample book. I wanted to have fun with this project, so I’ve chosen these flowers mostly for the humorous contexts they could be placed in. It was actually difficult to come up with modern speech for some of the flowers. As for the visuals of the book I wanted to stick with the idea of taking the old and making it new. I started off with a contemporary typeface and paired it with a traditional serif to represent the bridge. This later changed due to me wanting to keep my type consistent throughout the projects. The imagery style also changed for this reason. There was no true reasoning behind stylizing the images in such a way so I thought it would be best to make them similar to the photos that I would take later in the semester. I think this project would be fun to continue with in the future, especially as our culture grows and our language adapts.

Floriography: Bridging Traditional and Contemporary Forms of Communication

Message cards This project was the last one to be made and was probably the easiest. It also has gone through the most variations. This idea was originally inspired by posters I found on pinterest with illustrations of flowers with their names and meanings listed besides them. I was going to recreate the posters with my own images and typography but then a suggestion to make them into cards was given to me.

The passing of business cards was a form of communication that I had overlooked and I liked the idea of making pleasantry cards. There was a trend within the past couple of years of people passing along a card asking to do an act of kindness for someone and I liked how these could behave similarly to that.

Floriography: Bridging Traditional and Contemporary Forms of Communication

Postcards This project originated during a late night in the studio. I wanted a break from looking at my computer screen and broke out my watercolors. I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have an intended purpose for the illustrations while making them. I decided on making them into postcards while brainstorming more methods of communication to explore. Postcards are still fairly popular in modern communication as it was during the Victorian era. I also was intrigued by the idea of allowing people to write their own meanings to the flowers, as nowadays when people gift flowers it is more about the gesture of giving and personal intent rather than the definite meaning of each flower. 36

Floriography: Bridging Traditional and Contemporary Forms of Communication

In context This was another abandoned project. It was supposed to be a culmination of the research I did about how society influences communication. I never settled on a format to do this and ran out of steam as this project was in the works when spring break and the pandemic hit. I would love to return to this project when my stress levels lower.

Floriography: Bridging Traditional and Contemporary Forms of Communication

Arrangements app This idea was another one of my original ideas. This one was relying on the medium of modern communication and how floriography would behave within a technological form. The idea was creating an app where the user would type out the message they wanted to send and a bouquet would be generated. This project was abandoned early on. I never made it past the sketch phase, the idea wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t working and I couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t come up with a feasible solution within a reasonable timeframe.

Floriography: Bridging Traditional and Contemporary Forms of Communication

The Pandemic

Major Convolvulus

The year 2020 was supposed to be memorable in the way that it was my last year of schooling. That was the thought before the pandemic struck in February. Our department had just ended our trip to New York City when the coronavirus started to take a deeper hold in the United States and we were just entering spring break. This was the first spring break I wouldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve spent at the school. I was fully planning on using that week to complete more work for my thesis. Well, on Wednesday of that week we received the first email. Spring break was being

extended two more weeks and we werenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t going to be allowed in the Porteous building. I, like many others, had planned on riding out those two weeks in the dorm setting up our desks to be functional studios. Then on Thursday of the first week of extended break we got yet another email, this one from Laura Freid herself. MECA had decided to close their buildings for the indefinite future and all students were to move out of the dorms by the end of the second week. All thoughts of work had been tossed out the window. I had been drowned in feelings of

Floriography: Bridging Traditional and Contemporary Forms of Communication

This was taken on the day I had to move out of the dorms. There wasn’t any room in the car for the flowers I had bought so they joined the rest of my unecessary stuff in the dumpster. I literally threw out my thesis.

anger, panic, and deep sadness. I couldn’t and still can’t stop thinking about everything that me and my friends had to miss out on. (At the time of writing this it has been announced that there would be a commencement ceremony in the fall but a set date has not been announced) I suddenly went from having a month and a half to finish my work and hang out with all of my friends to having two days to pack up all of my stuff and say my goodbyes. It felt like my life fell into shambles, as I’m sure many others felt. I moved back home with my

mom in New York, and began online classes. Which suck, there are many reasons why I, personally, decided to do in-person schooling rather than online. Between the distractions of being at home, the emotional rollercoaster of the pandemic, and the struggle to focus during zoom calls, being any kind of productive is difficult. I have lost a lot of motivation to continue doing work, but this is one of the most important projects for me to complete so I have pushed myself to continue working.

Floriography: Bridging Traditional and Contemporary Forms of Communication

Final Thoughts This semester was a wild and emotional rollercoaster. I am proud of the work I was able to create during this time, and loved all (maybe just most) of the experiences I had. I am truly upset with the way we had to end things but I know the future will make up for it. It will be hard to look back on my college years and not reflect on this final semester. I look forward to looking at this body of work in the future and potentially revisiting some of the abandoned projects. Michaelmas Daisy

Floriography: Bridging Traditional and Contemporary Forms of Communication

Anna Wight is a senior Graphic Design major

at Maine College of Art. Originally from Upstate New York, Anna moved to Portland Maine to further develop her love of art and design. This love was first developed in high school where she was shown just how much design impacts the world around her. Since coming to Maine College of Art she has gained experience in marketing, branding, information design, book design and motion graphics. Anna has just completed an internship in the marketing department of Inficon, an electrical engineering company located in North Syracuse, Ny.

Designed by Anna Wight and submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Fine Arts, Maine College of Art, Portland Maine, May 11, 2020 Major in Grtaphic Design.

Headers set in Mina, designed by Giuseppe Salerno and Paco

Gonzรกlez. Body type set in Palatino, designed by Hermann Zapf. All photographs and writing by Anna Wight @Anna Wight 2020

Floriography: Bridging Traditional and Contemporary Forms of Communication