Kenneth celebrates nature through floral decoration
By Mehru Jaffer
JAKARTA (JP): Do not trust Kenneth Turner, even with a lemon. For God alone knows what he might do with it. After all, Kenneth is not just the world's most original floral decorator but he also enjoys the reputation of being a kind of magician.
He is known to have converted damp and cold rooms in England into Arabian palaces and made olive trees grow out of the roof at the wedding of a Greek tycoon. Claudia Shear, an American actress who has watched him pair artichokes with pink roses, accuses Kenneth of transforming her into a floral designer within less than 48 hours.
He is responsible for having created visual magic for the opening of the Sackler wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. And the masked ball designed by him at a Venetian Palazzo on the Grand Canal in Italy is said to have echoed with a hundred and more wows. Kenneth's other clients include Madonna, George Harrison, Margaret Thatcher, the late Diana, princess of Wales, and Jackie Onassis.
And after having mesmerized different parts of the American and European continents for over three decades, Kenneth recently stopped by in Jakarta for the first time in his life to entice one and all to appear before him so that he could unleash all the creativity that lies dormant in every human being.
"I have an easy job. Anyone can do what I do. All you have to do is to just do it," said Kenneth, the florist whose magical bouquets are sought after by the Spice Girls and members of the English royal family, who are forever asking him to create the mood, depending on whether they wish to dance or dine at that moment.
Leaving all the royalty and regalia behind him, the very first thing that Kenneth did on arrival here was to wake up at 4 a.m. to visit Jakarta's colorful wholesale flower market. He said he could not believe what he saw laid out before his eyes. Orchids, jasmine, tuber roses and other stems wrapped in banana leaves. he said a mountain high pile of marigolds was what he wanted to work with while he was here.
"I would love to do an entire dinning table covered in a sheet of marigold petals. And those bananas ... ," he said as if he was seeing flowers and fruits for the first time in his life.
"We made the people in the market laugh so much as they watched us 'ooh' and 'aah' all the time. It was like being transported into another world. The scents, the colors, it was all such a delight," said Sharon Melehi, a senior tutor at London's Kenneth Turner Flower School. Both agreed that the people were very nice to them at the marketplace.
"They answered all our silly questions so patiently. They are not just commercial and businesslike but really friendly and sweet," said Kenneth, adding that they would have to return to Jakarta as they have yet to visit the jungle!
The two made their first stop on this trip in Tokyo to see the cherry blossoms in bloom. In Singapore they demonstrated their art before a small but smitten crowd of flower lovers. Here in Jakarta the couple was hijacked by Blossoms, the flower shop at the Hotel Mulia.
"We have so many flowers here, and the floral decorations, especially at weddings, are elaborate," said Elvera Nuriawati, Mulia's public relations officer, but she finds most of the arrangements too tiresome and too unimaginative. Elvera hoped that after the two-day workshop with Kenneth, Blossoms would have picked up enough tips and tricks to fill the hotel with floral decorations that are unique to the city.
Kenneth is considered quite a revolutionary, having inspired an entire floral art generation. He describes each floral decoration as a celebration of nature, reflecting all its colors, shapes, textures and spontaneous movements.
"There is nothing that jollies up life more than flowers," Kenneth said, who finds inspiration in pebbles, shells, herbs, vegetables and driftwood, materials he also uses with flowers and candles to create such beauty and drama that it is talked off around the world long after the lilies have wilted and the leaves darkened. When that happens Kenneth does not just let his work go. He collects them all and dries them into glorious massed bunches for another kind of decoration.
The seeds of Kenneth's deep love for flowers were sown nearly half-a-century ago. While other kids studied to become doctors and lawyers he took refuge in his grandfather's garden in Ireland. Later he studied ornamental horticulture and continued to assist an elderly gardener and work at a local nursery.
His first job, he said, was that of a flower seller in a market. A marketplace perhaps similar to the one where the lively Eliza Doolittle, the Cockney flower girl from the musical My Fair Lady, also once sold basket loads of fresh flowers?