Ceramist and Flower Grower Frances Palmer Lectures Sunday on Zoom for Horticultural Alliance

Ceramic artist and flower grower Frances Palmer, the photographer and author of “Life in the Studio: Inspiration and Lessons on Creativity,” will deliver a lecture on her work and her creative process this Sunday afternoon, January 15, in a Zoom program hosted by the Horticultural Alliance of the Hamptons.

The Weston, Connecticut, resident started a small cutting garden so she would have fresh flowers to enhance the presentation of the vases she makes. Now she has many raised garden beds plus a greenhouse, all dedicated to growing flowers nearly year-round. Her pottery work and elegantly staged photos of floral arrangements fill her book, published in 2020, and her Instagram account, @francespalmer, where she has amassed more than 100,000 followers.

In an interview Tuesday, Palmer explained that she shares her whole worldview in her book and presentation, not just her view on ceramics and flowers. For instance, she discusses her philosophy on working while maintaining balance.

Palmer studied art history and earned both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in the subject, but her trajectory changed direction — though she noted that she’s always “a maker.”

For a time, she pursued printmaking and has always been a cook, she said, and is “very much a hands person.” She went on to teach herself ceramics, gardening and photography, three skills she uses to complement each other.

“I didn’t start doing the ceramics until I was married and had a baby and moved out to Connecticut from the city and was like, ‘Oh, dear, now what do I do now?’” she said.

Her family moved to Weston 39 years ago and lived in a 1940s modernist house for about a decade before relocating to an 1850s federal-style home on the other side of Weston. There, her family used 1790s beams salvaged in Bethel, Connecticut, to build a barn that became her ceramics and photography studio. “That’s where I’ve been working for almost 20 years,” she said.

The barn is two stories, plus a basement, and she also added on a greenhouse, where she raises Chrysanthemums.

One of the first flowers she began growing were Dahlias, long before they became fashionable, she recalled. Her original motivation was to use flowers to give context for the size of her vases.

“Once I kind of got going I realized how much I loved the gardening aspect, and I just started growing things so that I could have flowers year round,” she said.

She soon outgrew her original garden, a small round plot right outside her studio. So she started putting raised garden beds on an old 1930s tennis court on her property that was conveniently fenced in. Not only does the fence keep deer from munching on the flowers in her 30 raised beds, it also keeps out the persistent bear that had taken a liking to her beehives.

Because her garden is only for obtaining cuttings, Palmer does not have to be concerned about how it looks. “I would say my style veers toward chaos,” she said. “I’m not fussy.”

She is in the midst of working on her second book, which will be on how she thinks about growing flowers.

“Like the ceramics, like the photography, I work on the flowers every day,” Palmer said. “And I think when one works with something every day, they get to know the material, and it just allows time for study. It allows time for mistakes. It allows for time for retrying. So I just have kind of a daily process of the flowers and the ceramics and photography.”

In her presentation, she will share photos from her book, her process, how she thinks about clay, and show she approaches the garden and things that inspire her, she said.

The Sunday, January 15, Zoom program with Frances Palmer will begin at 2 p.m. Tickets are $10, or free for Horticultural Alliance members. Nonmember tickets can be purchased at hahgarden.org/tickets.