‘A creative boost’, that is what first-year student Jade van Schie was looking for when she decided to participate in the Bloem&Blad Talent Award. What she didn’t know at the time was that with her creations she would actually become the Flower & Leaf Talent of 2021.
Last September, Jade started the two-year Associate Degree program in Floristry at Aeres University of Applied Sciences Wageningen (Associate Degree is level 5, between vocational and bachelor level). Here she is trained as a florist at higher vocational level. An education that is synonymous with creating and creativity, but which was somewhat limited due to the corona measures. Understandably, Jade was looking for a challenge. She was pointed to the Bloem&Blad competition through the media and it seemed to her to be a nice experience. So she submitted her entry video; 3 minutes in which she shows how she gives shape to an assignment with minimal frameworks: only the theme and the maximum budget that she was allowed to spend on it was known. Furthermore, it was up to her creativity to make beautiful flower arrangements.
With the theme ‘twinkle’ she thought of the nursery rhyme ‘twinkle twinkle little star’, and there was the idea for a star. She then conceived and sketched the concept.
Thanks to her beautiful, luminous star creation, Jade became one of the three nominees and was allowed to participate in the competition on location. For this she received some advice and tips from her teacher and recognized flower artist Janneke Camps, because she had never participated in such a professional competition before. Plus, she knew who the other nominees were; both participants who often participate in demonstrations and competitions. Great was the joy when at the end of the day it turned out that Jade had won! She hadn’t expected this.
The jury praised her technique, creativity and explanation of her flower arrangements.
In addition to the honorable mention, Jade also won a 10-page article in the Bloem&Blad trend special, which will be in stores now. For this she had to work hard: coming up with designs, buying materials herself, putting together mood boards. And that for no less than 6 flower arrangements.
It was above all a very nice experience according to Jade; fun and educational. And her creativity is fine, it has been rekindled.
By Jan-Willem Noom
Acknowledgements: many thanks to EUROPEA-Netherlands and Jan-Willem 🙂
Photo: by Hortipoint (many thanks)
