Garden Club of Palm Beach lecture to feature founder of Flower Magazine

When Margot Shaw saw the floral arrangements made for her daughter’s wedding, the last thing on her mind was creating a botanical-based design magazine.

Yet, Sybil Sylvester’s arrangements sparked a journey that would lead Shaw into founding the nation's only floral lifestyle magazine and the eventual publishing of her first book, "Living Floral," now in its sixth edition.

Shaw, the founder and editor-in-chief of Flower Magazine, will discuss her approach to examining the world of botanical design at 3 p.m. Thursday in a public lecture sponsored by the Garden Club of Palm Beach and hosted in the Gubelmann Auditorium of the Society of the Four Arts.

Shaw told the Daily News she didn't hesitate to accept the invitation to speak.

“Somebody emailed my assistant, and I said ‘absolutely.’ It’s my old stomping grounds, I have a cousin there ... I stay with and friends who live on the island,” she said.

It's also an opportunity to speak in the town Shaw said she considers the South’s design capital.

“You’ve got (designer) Meg Braff ... and Lewis Miller, one of the greatest floral designers in the country,” she said. “I would say Palm Beach is poised to be a major floral and interior design mecca; I think it already is.”

An unlikely journey

Shaw traces her journey into floral design to her hometown of Birmingham, Alabama.

“Birmingham is a major flower town, always has been. We’re the only city in Alabama that has its own chapter of the Garden Club of America” Shaw said. “And both my great-grandmothers were founders ... so it’s in my DNA.”

While Shaw inherited her family’s love for flowers, she had never been active in a garden club or designed floral arrangements.

She made the transition while working with Sylvester during her oldest daughter’s wedding.

“I worked with her for six months and at the end I thought, this is an artform. Not only that; it was life-giving, inspiring and beautiful,” Shaw said of designing floral arrangements.

Following the wedding, she called Sylvester with a request, “Can I come work for you for free?”

The response was a resounding yes, Shaw said.

Shaw, who studied art history at Hollins College in Virginia and interior design at the University of Texas, spent four years working alongside Sylvester designing event spaces and flower arrangements until the 2004 holiday season.

“I was flying for a Christmas vacation and gathered up stack of publications just trying to find something more botanical lifestyle,” she said.

Many of the magazines came from Birmingham, which is home to Southern Progress Corporation, publisher of Southern Living and Coastal Living magazines, among others.

Failing to find a magazine focused on flowers sparked an idea.

“I just couldn’t even find anything really, and I remember there was this voice in my heart saying, ‘There’s no flower magazine, you need to start a flower magazine,’” she said.

Launching a new publication was challenging, Shaw said, "but everyone I needed was here in Birmingham, I just had to pay attention.”

One of those people was Karen Carroll, then editor-in-chief at the now-defunct Southern Accents, who served as a mentor during Flower Magazine’s budding days. She later joined Shaw following Southern Accents 2009 closure.

Shaw commended Carroll for helping her create the botanical lifestyle magazine Shaw had envisioned. Carroll also connected Shaw with nationally acclaimed designers including Charlotte Moss and Mary McDonald.

“She’s why we now have (designer) Charlotte Moss as a regular columnist,” Shaw said.

After 16 years of publishing Flower, Shaw said she hopes the magazine will continue to serve as a platform for the botanically influenced design world.

There are people that have been studying and working in design their whole life,” she said. “As a publisher, I want to herald that and promote that."

Thursday's lecture is free and open to the public, with seating on a first-come, first-served basis. A book-signing follows the event.

Diego Diaz Lasa is a journalist at the Palm Beach Daily News, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You canp reach him at dlasa@pbdailynews.com. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Flower Magazine founder to speak at Four Arts in Palm Beach