Wilder & Wren
Beth Kendall makes pressed flower art with meaning, inspired by nature, folklore, Greek and Roman mythology, Victorian floriography, motherhood and femininity. We caught up with Beth last year about what she makes and why.
I make pressed wildflower art and curios. Everything from baby name prints, to decorative floral seashells and vintage coat-hangers. I also sell curated wildflower pressing kits, featuring notes on the Victorian floriography of some of my favourite pressable flowers.
I started my small business Wilder & Wren almost five years ago when my son was born. I’ve always made things. Whether it was mud pies decorated with dandelions, painting watercolours of my favourite flower fairies or Brambly Hedge mice (my Mum still has a framed painting of Wilfred in her downstairs toilet!) Or later, studying creative arts and poetry at university. I worked as an artists’ model in my very early twenties and used to draw my fellow model friends when I wasn’t sitting myself.
I worked in public relations for a number of years, and while that is a creative ideas-based job, you are always working for someone else – striving to do the best for clients and meeting their expectations. It’s also incredibly fast-paced. When I had my first baby Wilder, I felt a sense of freedom I’d not had in years. So many people say that having children can quash creativity and the ‘ideas’ side of your brain, but I believe the quiet new-baby life was what gave me the headspace and subsequent confidence to think and make creatively on my own terms.
I start with a tidy desk, a cup of coffee and a quiet house. I often have ideas when walking my children to school, and I keep an eye on the zeitgeist – and with that in mind, how I feel the things I make will fit with my brand, and who might like it.
Working with flowers, I also think seasonally. And having a background in PR I always plan ahead. That’s often frustrating when it’s midwinter and I want to start working on a new floral design or a batch of pressed flower shells for spring… but the flowers are still yet to appear! I definitely have a very intentional process. I often don’t just make for the sake of it. I make as a response to the seasonal landscape – both natural and cultural. I don’t buy into that ‘Pantone colour of the year’ stuff (that’s complete PR hype) but I do really enjoy the side of my business that is keeping my eyes open: reading the papers, watching trends on social media, as well as being inspired more personally – by my environment, other artists, historical customs, folklore and my own very personal tastes.
I get a real sense of community from the online makers I know from Instagram – and people I’ve met from doing craft markets and things. I feel like being a maker in the age of the internet is really democratising. It’s a different (I think better) world to work as an artist, than it was when I graduated with an art degree in the early 2000s.
I enjoy all aspects of the process, but I especially like the feeling when I’ve launched a new piece of work. I really like the stone letters I made last year. They are a conceptual idea that I created into something tangible, and that kind of reminds me of the way I used to work when I studied art. The stones represent the Japanese language of stone letters (if you’ve seen the film The Departed you’ll understand).
In ancient times, before the invention of writing, people would search for the stone that most represented their feelings. I decorated small batches of stones with pressed flowers, including notes about the flowers’ floriography – or Victorian flower meanings. I’m not entirely sure what the function of these small boxes of stones are, but they each carry meaning and are meant to be given – passed on to loved ones. In the same way that traditional bunches of flowers are, I guess.
I’m also really excited about a wallpaper I’ve just launched with designer Honor Addington. We’ve worked together on two designs, Meadow Flowers, featuring pressed British wildflowers and Beachcomb, which includes beach treasures such as pressed seaweed, seashells and gull feathers.
If I didn’t do this, I think whatever other job I’d do, it would have to involve an element of creativity – whether I were a gardener growing things, a cook making food, a writer constructing meaning through words. If I were in my early twenties now, I think I would pursue poetry. It was such a different, obscure and elitist world to be in twenty years ago and quite intimidating. Just like the art world, I feel some of that stuffiness has dissipated. Plus, you can be an introverted, quiet poet so much more easily now. I’ve never really liked performing.
Beth Kendall