Great Day at ADAC!!!!

As a design professional, I'm lucky to be able to use the Atlanta Decoratiave Arts Center for "to the trade" business.  It is filled with a multitude of heavenly showrooms and offers some really lovely events.  I've heard so many great designers such as Bunny Williams, Nina Campbell, Carolyne Roehm and Charles Faudree there, just to name drop a bit.

But TODAY they hit a home run with their ADAC in Bloom Event!

It was co-sponsored by  flower magazine, and wow.....did they ever do a great job!

It was billed as a chance to "celebrate and explore nature's influence on the world of design with a talent-packed day of lectures, book signings, and demonstrations".  That sounds like a lot to deliver, but deliver they did!!!!

This photo is from the event sign-up area of the website, advertising ADAC in Bloom.  I'm wild about how the hydrangeas reflect in the antiqued mirror of the tabletop.

First, we were welcomed by Margot Shaw, the Editor-in-Chief of  flower magazine.  What a firecracker she is!  She's a thoroughly Southern girl from Birmingham, Alabamba who founded this magazine five years ago to educate and inspire flower enthusiasts while showcasing the many talented floral professionals within this thriving, diverse industry. 

 Go to http://www.flowermag.com/archives/ to review what she's been up to.  I could do an entire post about Margot and flower magazine (and I might another time), but wait until you see who was on the panel:

Yep!  That's Karen Carroll, Barry Dixon, Tara Guerard, and Jon Carloftis.  (Tara's last name should have a little French accent over the e, but I can't figure out how to do it!)

First up was Karen Carroll, Vice President and Editor in chief of Southern Accents before it's sad demise.  She's now a freelance editor and writer for flower magazine.  She has been a guest blogger at The Skirted Roundtable.  She had a great outlook on the perfection of nature and how we, as flower arrangers or florists, could never improve on it, but rather edit it to our specific needs for each event or arrangement.  She also gave a very nice nod to bloggers for being a resource to learn, learn, learn.  

Do I need to tell you anything about Barry Dixon???????  He's a well known, well published, well admired interior designer.  His interior books are beautiful and a great resource for anyone who loves great design.  His childhood provided the chance to live in several exotic foreign countries and yet, his heart is in his 400 acre farm in the countryside of Virginia, near Washington, D. C.  He was definitely the clown of the panel, but that didn't stop him from giving us a great panel discussion.  I remember that he said "if God made it, it's good enough for me to use it".  I love that!  What a charmer.

Can you say "tastemaker"?????  Tara Guerard is all that and more!  She owns Soiree, which just might just be the premiere event design company in the South.  (the world?)  She's funny, irreverent, and oh, sooooo talented.  She did a presentation which featured several of her incredible weddings and spoke about the details of each.  Man, I love the details!  Even if you can't use Sylvia Weinstock for your cake, you can still use some of Tara's fresh and tailored look. She has a great blog which you can see here.

And then there was this cutie!  Jon Carlotis, gardener to the stars!  Jon specializes in rooftop gardens and does a lot of work on those dreamy roofs and balconies in NYC for some really big deal people.  He just finished doing four gardens for the rooftop of Google's headquarters in NYC.  It is the third largest office building in the city.  But he's a Kentucky boy through and through.  I'm going to be in Ky next week and I'm jumping off of I-75 to see Welcome Hill, his childhood home where his retail business, Rockcastle River Trading Company is located.  He also has a presence in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.  Well, wherever he is working or living, he is one great speaker with charm and wit and lots of love for his dogs and family.  He's "doing God's work" when he's planting, he says.  

And who didn't love the talk by James Farmer?  This thirty year old charmer had every woman there falling in love with him.  He had the best stories about his Mama, his Meemaw, his days at Auburn, and his life long home in middle Georgia.  I could have listened to him talk all day.  I love that he takes a responsibility to bring landscape, architecture, food and gardening to the people of his generation. Go to www.jamesfarmer.com to check him and his books out. 


Here's a handful of photos from the demo that Margot gave in the Ernest Gaspard showroom:

I'm inspired beyond belief and grateful for flower and ADAC.  I drove home (in Atlanta rush-hour traffic, no less) with visions of flowers and tablescapes swirling around in my head.  Let's see where this takes me in the next few weeks.  I may not be able to sleep tonight.  I'll probably be on my computer checking out what all of you are up to!