Caterina Ruggieri
Caterina Ruggeri’s Floral Art
Love for details and handmade creations to bring joy to your home
When flowers can make a difference, Caterina knows how to transform an apparently simple location into an art space, where ideas and emotions are expressed through combinations of colour and texture, enhanced by scents and visual patterns.
Caterina is a flower designer and if this is the first time you hear about this profession, she can tell you all about it. I can’t say I have a “pollice verde” or green thumb but I am passionate about the world of flowers and Caterina introduces me to her creative space, sharing her passion and knowledge for the world of plants and botanic decorations. First of all, being a flower designer means being prepared and trained in design, art history and use all the notions needed to create a floral project using cut flowers and structures designed together with other professionals or even created entirely by his or her own hands.
When the global health crisis hit, Caterina, who was already working as a flower designer, decided to take a risk and launched her own line of artisanal products online. Being from Puglia, the southern region of sunshine and beautiful local art, the collection included only a few kind of items and she was collaborating mainly with local artigiani. Then things started to expand and she felt her collection could grow and get a wider scope, involving more artists and types of products.
“What is my mission? To spread love and happiness!”
Growing an independent business necessarily involves more admin and paperwork. “At one point my creative soul was feeling constrained, but I was not going to surrender to the heavy bureaucracy.” Thanks to the help of her partner, Caterina could fully dedicate to her artistic self.
So, Caterina started out her boutique with only a couple of different pieces and then began to add other creations to her collection. Clearly, she loves flowers and this is her main theme: from decorative dried flowers, to hair pins and cloches, all her designs and accessories are infused with a romantic bohemian feeling.
For Caterina the creative process is essential. She works with the artisans collaborating to her project from day one until the final product is ready. Caterina says it is helpful if the artisan shares the same creative idea of the item, so it is a shared effort to realise what they exactly have in mind. This was the case with the artisan who creates the resin garden coasters, “she was also so passionate with flowers,” shares with enthusiasm. Alchemy is essential to turn ideas into reality. This is why ”the artisans I collaborate with are my secret treasures, they are real people with their stories.”
“This work is art. If this is your vocation, you can do anything.”
Caterina’s boutique comes after years of experience in the sector, an inner and constant search for beauty in the natural world. Even as a child she used to be so fascinated by flowers that many pictures capture her with a bunch of flowers or a small margherita in her tiny hands.
Speaking about the world of florists, Caterina believes that “everyone sees the flower in their own way”. Even if the flower industry is a competitive one, Caterina is keen to share some secrets and tips of the job, del mestiere. This is why she created the very first Italian social community on Facebook. Fioristi con Caterina Ruggieri is where professionals and amateurs from the botanic world can meet, discuss and find new creative solutions to take care of flowers as a precious gift from nature.
When I ask her if she is not concerned that her designs can get stolen or overused, she remains confident and proud of her skills and the power of her imagination: being a flower designer, she says, ”is a personal work. You can copy but it will never be the same”.
