ARTOBER: AN ARTFUL LIFE WITH FLOWERS, FRANCES PALMER
- Jennifer Jewell
- 2 days ago
- 6 min read
In a world that needs a great deal from us right now, we can almost never go wrong by igniting our creativity. This week on CP we dive deeper into ARTOBER in conversation with one of our favorite creatives, artists, gardeners, writers, teachers, and flower lovers.
We’re speaking once again with writer, photographer, and potter Frances Palmer about her new book "Life with Flowers, inspiration and lessons from the garden" (2025, Artisan), a sort of Masterclass in growing, arranging with, and loving the art of flowers. A previous guest on the program, one of the 75 women featured in my book "The Earth in Her Hands", Frances is a fantastic inspiration for any creative gardener-maker out there!
"I am honored and happy to think that people across the world are using my work
when they gather in friendship to share a meal and good times."
-Frances Palmer, Potter
Frances Palmer is a mother, a gardener, a businesswoman, and a revered potter
whose inventive, handmade ceramics are durable and beautiful – functional art as she says. Which is so often exactly what our gardens are as well. Hers certainly is…
Frances’ most recent book: "Life With Flowers", really highlights her identity as a gardener and chronicles in words and rich photographs the growing and making of a very good life. “With meditations on patience, nature’s unpredictability, flowers in art, and more, this book is as rich, varied, beautiful, and nourishing as the gardens Frances Palmer has lovingly created.”
Frances joins us once again from her studio in Weston, Connecticut where her
garden is full of flowers -
Frances Welcome Back to Cultivating Place!
Follow Frances online:
and on Instagram:
All photos courtesy of Frances Palmer; All rights reserved.
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JOIN US again next week, when we air our next CP LIVE episode in conversation with two remarkable public artists whose incredible murals bring the sacred presence of nature into human places and humans back into nature's places. Sofia Laçin and Hennessey Christophel are Studio Tutto and they make the whole world better, starting in LA. That's right here, next week. Listen in!
Cultivating Place is made possible in part by listeners like you and by generous support
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in honor of Bailey Shaw
supporting initiatives that empower women and help preserve the planet through the intersection of environmental advocacy, social justice, and creativity.
Thinking out loud this week...
Hey hey, it's Jennifer—
This week, and in continuing to explore and highlight different ways people put their artistry and garden-variety creativity to work in the world, I am riffing off two quotes frequently attributed to Albert Einstein, the first is: “The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge, but imagination.” And this paraphrase of a point of his: "The world we have created is a product of our thinking; it cannot be changed without changing our thinking." Which is where creativity comes in! All of our creativity.
The many problems we face in our lives, in our larger world, even in our gardens – are pleading with us – it seems to me – to open my gaze and look at the “problem” differently. From a different angle – to apply my greatest creativity to my thinking about it – not once, but again and again. And in doing it to look and listen and feel for insights about ourselves, the situation, the way forward.
In her work, in her book and in our now several conversations on CP over the
years, Frances so humbly and generously shares her stories of love, loss, learning and ultimately the creative crafting and cultivating of a very good life.
So many things look so differently from outside - say looking at an AI crafted image or an Instagram feed: they look easy and lovely and carefree. But as Frances is firm in claiming - her creativity has been forged in loss and grief as much as crafted in making and love.
I love and have written down on a note for myself Frances’s saying to us: “By
making things, I know them.” And I think about this in my garden nature. Because in part, if I am of the garden’s nature as much as it is of mine, then in “making” with the garden, I don’t just know her better – I know me better. And that’s where I can break out of old thinking and grow new creative thinking.
This was like a bright light and a psychological lightening for me. This makes
sense to me…
Am I making sense to you over there in your garden?
The interweaving of who Frances Palmer is, and how pottery, gardening, cooking and family are all interdependent for her –she is not just sharing lessons on making pots, or flower arrangements, but on life.
The story of Cultivating Place has always been about the tree of life and where we as humans fit and contribute most beautifully. Stay creative as gardeners and humans.
Gardens are art, and the practice of Cultivating Place well is an ongoing art across our lives….an art of looking, listening, learning, and loving…
Yes – we are well into ARTOBER. Every episode this month Abra, Ben and I will be in conversation with an artist of some kind, whose artistry goes hand in hand with their own Cultivating Place practice.
As you’ve already experienced over on Instagram, the CP team is introducing you almost daily to one of the 17 artists who have generously donated examples of their artistry to the upcoming Art of CP online art auction running from Thursday October 23rd through end of day Monday October 27th .
One of these artists is Frances Palmer who generously donated one of her classic #2 Picasso Pots and a signed copy of "Life With Flowers" . If you’ve always wanted a Frances Palmer pot, now’s your chance-all while you’re supporting this growing work you love. Hope you’re already registered as a bidder on the ART of CP Auction site, but if not – now’s the perfect time! Link to register HERE.
This Art of CP Auction is full of nature and garden based art born of the generosity of both plants and these artists!
This first – we hope annual – Art of CP auction offers a little bit of artistry for everyone. All proceeds from the auction directly support the Cultivating Place Foundation and its awareness-raising and engagement efforts – this year really focused on the completion of our documentary film in production: The Power of Gardeners: A World Where Gardeners are a Keystone Species; a world where every act of Cultivating Place is an opportunity to take better care of everything.
AND PS: don’t forget that we want to support the artist in all of us! At the end of ARTOBER on CP, and in honor of my early November birthday, I’m starting a #CP100dayproject – joined by Margaux of Peg & Awl.
So excited for the people who have already signed up to take part, I hope you will join us too!? You do not have to register to take part, but registrants will be included in virtual check-in invitations, some workshopping together, and the final virtual party to celebrate our 100th day and the 10th Anniversary of CP in early February.
Really happy to be here together with you all on this artful learning path that is the practice of Cultivating Place well.
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The CP team includes producer and engineer Matt Fidler, with weekly tech and web support from Angel Huracha, weekly communications support by Sheila Stern and Carley Bruckner, transcripts by Doulos Transcription, and regular guest hosting by Abra Lee and Ben Futa. We’re based on the traditional and present homelands of the Mechoopda Indian Tribe of the Chico Rancheria. Original theme music is by Ma Muse, accompanied by Joe Craven and Sam Bevan.
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