The Consulate
We recently had the pleasure of opening our second diplomatic outpost in Hobart where we proudly fly the flag of Australia’s fragrant native botanicals. I wanted to take a moment to share some of the beautiful highlights of the Consulate and the way I have curated the space.
I was very fortunate to get my hands on the rich green wax residue of rare boronia flowers. I then used the wax to make a set of five delicate lampshades by hand. I hung them at the entrance above our copper mirrored plinths where we display our most precious eau de parfums. Precious meets precious!
For those who are new to boronia, it’s a very special Tasmanian native flower that is Australia’s most significant contribution to the world of fine fragrance ingredients. To get a few kilos of wax takes several years of harvesting of hundreds of millions of flowers, if not billions. So, to have the opportunity to work with nearly 5kg of wax is well beyond verbs and adjectives. I feel incredibly honoured that my friends at Essential Oils of Tasmania trusted me to go on my lampshade frolic with this legacy asset.
Pops of colour come in the form of “Bruny Island” by legendary photographer, Kara Rosenlund, a giant Yve Klein Blue painting, a khaki ceiling, and stripes of fluro orange seafarer’s rope. Seagrass tiles (another obsession) provide warmth and comfort. And candles under gleaming glass cloches rest gracefully on ancient terracotta tiles set in a Spanish refectory table from the 1700’s. Acres of white linen soften the gaze, terrazzo stools with handwoven pampas armrests are for perching on and a large old English oak table from the 1800’s anchors everything with the elbows, stories and souls of all those who sat around it for more than 200 years.
The fragrant elements of the natural world are all proudly showcased here ~ from its flowers, fruits, roots and leaves, to its seeds, resins, mosses and woods. This is the language that I now try listen to and interpret. I hope you’ll enjoy the space as much as I have in creating it.
