Rosemary Stafford
Artist Bio
Rosemary Stafford is a Portland based traveling floral and installation artist, creating custom features using mostly natural/botanical elements for restaurants, lobby spaces, private homes, festivals, corporate affairs, charity galas, and weddings. As a Portland native, brought up by a poet and a weaver/musician, Rose long has been invested in the collaborative cultivation of art, nature, poetry, theater, and music. As a child and teenager, though she never learned to read music, Rose composed piano pieces and considered formally studying to become a film score composer. Later, the visual arts and the blooming world took over her creative and career focus. As a farmer, forager, and trash to treasure connoisseur, Rose is committed to lessening the carbon footprint of imported floral and prop materials in her design work whenever possible. Intuitively inspired by person, place, and/or event, Rose celebrates an infused sense of magic within her arrangements, whether petite or colossal.
Piano: “Parsley, Sage, Me, and Wine”
The design vision for my piano “Parsley, Sage, Me, and Wine” was always intended to be an ever evolving living and then drying and then living again moveable piece. Inspired by our surrounding pacific northwest landscape and farmland, I wanted to feature a vast wealth of botanical materials, and woven within, a sense of human celebration -- as if some spritely folks had gathered there to play, drink, and be merry. The constant I chose to celebrate and preserve was the elegant woodgrain of the piano itself, and the supreme beauty of the instrument as it was originally designed. I wanted the piano to appear as if it had once belonged to some grand estate, and then had lived for some time amid the forest, and then perhaps travelled to the outskirts of town for a gathering. As if nature had reclaimed it, and/or some midsummer night's dream had swirled it up within a festive soiree. Simon and Garfunkle were THE soundtrack of my childhood, and “Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme’s" haunting melody flattered my young self as it featured my name. The piano “Parsley, Sage, Me, and Wine” aims to honor that young piano composer and budding artist, and celebration for a life well lived, dressed in music, merry making, art, and the magic of the natural world.