Each month, Nikki Wilson interviews an Ignite Member, asking five simple questions, to find out what creativity means to them, and how they see culture and creativity, and its potential, in Chelmsford.

This month Nikki talks to Kirsty Cornell.

How would you describe what you do? 

I worked for almost 25 years in the charity sector, most recently as the Chief Executive of Families InFocus (Essex), where I’m still a trustee.  But about a year and half ago,  I left and decided to follow an interest I’ve had for years.  I retrained at Writtle College, and now I’m a studio based florist. I work from my home in Chelmsford, and deliver bouquets and arrangements to different convenience stores across Essex.  At the moment, I’m doing three and hope to go up to four soon.

One of the things I’m conscious of is that flowers can be really, really expensive.   I’m trying to make sure I can make flowers that are more affordable, and also last a long time. So I try to think carefully about how I can make a bouquet that looks beautiful and quite natural, because that’s my  preferred style, but also will be with flowers that last a really long time, and aren’t super expensive.  A wholesale flower could be anything from 40p a flower to around £4 a flower, so it’s trying to think, “How can I order flowers at the lower end of that range and make sure that it looks beautiful?”  I try to concentrate quite a lot on colour and texture, because I think that makes a massive difference to how the bouquet looks when it’s put together.

The other thing that is quite important to me is floristry, not always, but sometimes, can be very bad for the environment.  It’s not the most sustainable industry, so things like normal flower foam isn’t degradable, it goes straight into landfill, where it sits forever. So I’ve been trying to experiment with flower foams that don’t degrade entirely, but degrade around 91%.  There are loads of other materials that I’m trying to use instead of traditional flower foam, and also thinking about making sure that the wrapping is compostable.  So instead of wrapping flowers in plastic, there’s wrap that’s in the same kind of material as the bags we use for food waste in Chelmsford.   I’m still learning a lot, I have to say, about sustainability. Obviously, we’ve just had Valentine’s Day, and I made loads of bouquets of red roses, which is incredibly bad for the environment.  We don’t grow roses in this country in February, so they’re all imported, and mass-produced. I’ve been really reflecting on that over the last couple of weeks and thinking for next year, how I can do something that’s much less impactful on the environment, just to try and make a bit of a difference, and really think about sourcing flowers that are UK grown.

And who, or what gives you creative inspiration?

I’ve been thinking about this quite a lot. I’ve been interested in flowers for a very long time, and I’ve been doing lots of different flower courses, but being a florist is obviously really new for me. So I think I get inspiration everywhere.  I’m still constantly learning  and looking at different things, so obviously things like social media, looking at Instagram, but then trying to be really thoughtful, because I think it’s very easy to look at what a florist may have done on Instagram and go “That’s beautiful, I’m going to try and copy that”, but actually it might not suit my style, or the things that I want to try and create with my flowers. So it’s looking at the inspiration and then, not necessarily thinking I want to try and do something that’s exactly the same. 

I love going to florist shops, chatting to other florists and seeing work that other people are doing, just getting some new ideas. Also, I think the big thing for me is going to gardens. So, like I said, I like things that look like they’ve just grown as wildflowers, or grown in your garden, so going to gardens and seeing how gardeners have done it, and how they’ve thought about colour, and texture, and space, and also then also just thinking  “How has nature done it? How has nature put these things together?” I think, is really inspirational for me.

If you could try any new creative or cultural experience or practice, what would it be?

You know, I still don’t think of myself as a creative person, possibly because I’ve been in a desk job for the last 25 years, but a long time ago, I used to really enjoy painting. And I thought actually, it would be really nice to get back to doing that again and drawing. I’m not very good at it, but I used to really enjoy the process of doing it, and trying to do it, so I think maybe if I was going to try something, I’d probably try that. 

Also, I don’t know if this counts as creative, but the other thing I really want to do is gardening. Saying all of this stuff about what’s important to me in flowers and bouquets, my garden is an absolute tip! So getting that sorted and getting some nice flowers in, would be a real dream. I think if I was able to grow my own flowers, that I could then make into bouquets and sell, then that, particularly from an environmental perspective, would be brilliant, because it would have such a small carbon footprint. So yes, either drawing and painting or gardening and making my garden look beautiful,

What excites you about creativity and culture in Chelmsford?

Chelmsford, I think, has changed a lot in the last 5-10 years in terms of creativity and culture. It felt, to me, at least, that there didn’t used to be a lot that was available, and there were very few independent shops or independent venues. I think that has really changed recently, and so things like the Concrete Canvas, are absolutely brilliant. My kids love that, they love going around the town centre with a map, checking things out, and the Art Place, and obviously Ignite. I think there’s a lot more now, isn’t there, than there ever used to be. The theatre’s been around, for a long time, and it has a great programme, but it feels like there’s a lot more going on culturally, in Chelmsford, recently than there has been in the past.

What would you like to see in Chelmsford that isn’t here yet?

Over the summer, I went to Colchester with my children, and we went to Firstsite. I think that’s such an amazing space, because it has so many different events, doesn’t it? There’s so much going on. And I think that kind of space in Chelmsford would be absolutely brilliant. It caters for so many different groups:  kids and adults and all kinds of different events. When I was at Families InFocus, we went there as we had a community event, and there were loads of different charities there, talking about different things. So I think a space like that would be brilliant. I know we’ve got the museum, but it’s not quite the same, is it? I don’t think it’s quite as big and vibrant, and hasn’t got quite as much going on, so that I think would be my ideal.