M. Atherton Baber Studio-Workshop

M. Atherton Baber Studio-Workshop Antiques, garden floristry, hospitality, and style, supplied and taught, afield and online.

Still unsure of how you’ll celebrate Valentine’s Day or whether you’ll recognize the day at all?Here’s an idea, and it’s...
02/13/2025

Still unsure of how you’ll celebrate Valentine’s Day or whether you’ll recognize the day at all?

Here’s an idea, and it’s right from my heart:

Take the $50 or $100 you might otherwise spend on bits and bobs that don’t amount to much.

Look for a great sale price on high-quality pet food, and buy as much as your budget allows. If you’re feeling extra flush, add a few toys, treats, or gallons of bleach too.

During their normal business hours, drop these off at your local .

Then, go home knowing a few truly hungry, needy bellies were fed, and will sleep a little cozier, for at least a little longer, because you cared.

That’s the kind of our animal friends, and frankly our world, need now!

It’s also how I spend some of my business profit, even before I pay myself.

I’ll share more about this vital aspect of how I run my business in upcoming posts.

For more now, follow link in bio to visit my website. From the main menu, select Join the Revolution, and read on!

To support this work, simply buy my classes and shop with my business, as usual. Once my expenses are met, my next priority is always connecting resources with shelters, as generously as I’m able.

In a time when everything costs more than ever and external funding is down for all kinds of organizations that fill an awful lot of otherwise unmet need, please, even if it’s just a little bit, share some love—‘tis the season! 🐾

As promised, I give you the thrilling conclusion of Valentine’s Misadventures in Retail Floristry!Over 25 years ago, I e...
02/12/2025

As promised, I give you the thrilling conclusion of Valentine’s Misadventures in Retail Floristry!

Over 25 years ago, I enthusiastically apprenticed to a great society florist, and it was Valentine’s.

Our cracked hands and spent backs had already made and delivered hundreds of bouquets all week. On The Day, telephone and walk-in orders still deluged in. Lunch passed. Only 153 more arrangements to make and deliver, then sweet rest!

Just when our swollen, aching feet would’ve staged a walkout, had they not been too tired to stop working, an exasperated man burst through the shop door with a bed pillow under arm, trailing a duvet behind. Tangled in purse straps, ladies’ clothes falling off hangers, and a blue lace bra, he and his lumbering load crashed onto the clerk’s desk!

“Something nice,” he panted. “Delivered. All this too.”

The gobsmacked clerk gaped back over laddered stockings and shoe boxes with lost and mismatched lids.

“Divorce,” he confessed.

Being a shop that filled every request within law, we organized the chaos into strong paper shopping bags, tied each with a bow of wide double-faced silk satin ribbon, meticulously dressed bags with tissue paper, and delivered them with the largest bouquet that left the shop all year!

Not too many years later, we married the couple, for the second time, to each other. That wedding remains one of the most dazzlingly decorated ballrooms I’ve seen (and no other florist was considered for the job)!

Hello, friends, old and new, and happy weekend. Let’s get our hands dirty together! Whether you’ve followed me for years...
02/07/2025

Hello, friends, old and new, and happy weekend. Let’s get our hands dirty together!

Whether you’ve followed me for years or moments, I appreciate our time together and hope you settle in and ENJOY yourself here.

I’m Matthew. I teach floristry and cooking TECHNIQUE. That’s the knowledge, methods, and skills that FREE you from recipes and prescriptions and EMPOWER you to confidently create ANYTHING your heart desires. When we do more for ourselves, our dollars stretch further too!

I work from rare experience in and out of the classroom, and I’m incredibly proud that my student feedback is 100% positive!

Whether you’re just starting out and want to begin on the right foot or an experienced pro, keen to elevate your game and stand out in your field, I’m for YOU.

A recent student said it better than I can when she told me she had practiced floristry and taken courses for over 50 years, and my Vase Arranging class finally empowered her to achieve her floral dreams!

And she’s right. Plenty of classes exist elsewhere. If those suit you, please take them.

Mine are distinctly different. I teach the considered, comprehensive knowledge, skills, and quality of instruction I searched for when I learned and never found, anywhere in the world.

If you might want to learn with me, fantastic! You’re most welcome! Please follow me here, if you don’t already. Check out my website, YouTube, and, of course, my Google reviews. We’ll achieve GREAT things TOGETHER!

What knowledge or skills do YOU want to learn this year? What techniques would elevate YOUR food, flowers, and LIFE every day? How can food and flowers help you CONNECT with community and loved ones?

Please let me know in comments, below, and I’ll see YOU there.

Thank you, friends. Remember to do something you LOVE today (and tomorrow)! xx

With Valentine’s Day looming, I hope I might help you with a reminder to keep your vase and vase water CLEAN.I have no i...
02/06/2025

With Valentine’s Day looming, I hope I might help you with a reminder to keep your vase and vase water CLEAN.

I have no idea where your flowers came from, or how they were grown or chemically treated. So, I am NOT suggesting anyone drink vase water. Do NOT do that!

However, conceptually, if YOU would not drink the water from the vase, or would not serve your beloved child or pet from it, then the vase and water are not clean enough to help your cut flowers last.

In fact, keeping cut flowers is slightly like having a child or pet because they all require daily care to thrive.

Keep the vase water crystal-clear and topped up. Pour out old water. Replace it with fresh cool water. Do it whenever the water first starts to cloud or smell.

My top pro tip is to change vases when you change water!

1. Clean a second vase with dishwashing-type soap and hot water.

2. Fill clean vase with plain cool water.

3. As if choking your foe around the neck, use your hands to gently lift flowers out of original vase.

4. Rinse stems under cool water, running down stems, away from blooms.

-If you can, cut about an inch off the bottom of stems with clean, sharp secateurs. This helps them drink the clean water.

If not, don’t fret. Your arrangement might not last quite as long, but it’s not the end of the world.

5. Drop your refreshed arrangement into the second vase, the one with clean water.

6. Repeat when vase water seems unfresh, usually every second or third day, depending on environmental conditions. How do you know when? Use your senses. Eyes and nose will tell you what is and is not fresh. Keep it FRESH!

Et voilà! We can’t account for anything that happened to your flowers before you received them, but following this protocol is your best tool to make expensive flowers something closer to a genuine value by maximizing vase life—you’re welcome!

Hello and happy day!I’ve received questions about what it’s like running my business as a one-man band. So, I’m going to...
02/04/2025

Hello and happy day!

I’ve received questions about what it’s like running my business as a one-man band. So, I’m going to start sharing more day-in-my-life details here.

I hope you’ll enjoy glimpses behind the curtain. Please let me know in comments, below.

Today, I’m thinking about my 2025 season. This time of year, I’m always thinking about my upcoming season! What ideas and skills do I want to teach and how? Which platforms best suit which skills and instructional/learning styles? Which content might land best next year instead? What garden splendor will I have to show you?

As I think, I learn. This morning, I’m attending a Garden Media Guild webinar. I do this often. Particularly for us isolated country mice, succeeding in our small places, and keeping relevant, vitally depends on staying active with our industry abroad.

As sole proprietor, I am my own business strategist, marketer, content creator, and all the rest. I need the support and wisdom of colleagues, both at my stage of career and those who blazed trails before me. Whether we’re making breakfast, tying bouquets, or anything else, we ALL need mentors to help us achieve our full potential!

After lunch, I’m visiting a dear friend and client. I’ll assess reviving her long-neglected rose garden and join her for some tasty snack she’s doubtlessly baked, because she knew I was coming. Then, we’ll have a good catch-up with many laughs. (And if one or two crumbs of gossip pass our lips, only the chandeliers and silk moiré wall coverings will ever know!)

Finally, it will be home for the remaining stuff of life, including my kitchen oven, which has been down for a week and won’t be repaired for at least a week more.

The days are long. The work is hard. But this is Kentucky. Honest work comes with never taking one’s self too seriously, drop-dead delicious food, and real, heartfelt human connection. Every day, I’m grateful to do what I do right here!

Thanks for reading through. I’ll share pictures to my Stories on the way. Come along!

Happy Monday!Today, I’m thinking about hand-tied bouquets. I do not mean a mere gathered bunch. Great hand-tied bouquets...
02/03/2025

Happy Monday!

Today, I’m thinking about hand-tied bouquets.

I do not mean a mere gathered bunch.

Great hand-tied bouquets are expertly made from meticulously selected and prepared fresh-cut flowers and foliage.

Stems are deftly arranged into a perfect spiral that stands freely. Above, a gently rounded canopy of rich botanic texture is as elegantly contoured as true to nature.

I’ve selected this bouquet to illustrate because the color is not distracting.

I photographed it low to help you notice 1. the precision of the spiraled stems and 2. that no bloom is crushed against another.

Smashed blooms are common in less well-structured examples. That’s because the required technique and hand skills have not been mastered. Just poke around online to see examples aplenty!

The hand-tied bouquet, in more or less the form I’m showing you here, predates the invention of floral foam by nearly a century. Therefore, the form is, by definition, foam-free and more environmentally sustainable than foam-based arrangements.

In sum, the hand-tied bouquet is the pinnacle of ingredients and method combined with no place to cheat or hide flaws. Making it well is widely regarded as the most accomplished technical skill in all floristry.

What’s your relationship with hand-tied bouquets? Love or loathe them, please let me know in comments, below. As I contemplate this genre, I’ll truly appreciate reading your thoughts on this uniquely European style.

For centuries, France has shaped world culture, and she continues leading today.I’m posting this sumptuously petaled, de...
01/29/2025

For centuries, France has shaped world culture, and she continues leading today.

I’m posting this sumptuously petaled, deliciously scented French Bourbon rose from my fields, Louise Odier, to highlight a line from French President Emmanuel Macron’s recent talk on renovations to the Louvre museum.

He said, “In an era where immediacy and forceful rhetoric hold hypnotic power over so many, speaking about the long-term, about culture and art, is… also a political battle.”

How can we help our world now?

Art matters. Culture matters. Our produce and ideas we think while tending our gardens make our very selves and world.

What are you growing? How can I help you?

Let’s make something good together!

I give you… Le Grand Bucket! If you know Hyacinth, you may appreciate the name. If you like flowers, I hope these thrill...
01/24/2025

I give you… Le Grand Bucket!

If you know Hyacinth, you may appreciate the name. If you like flowers, I hope these thrill you! They do me.

This fragrant 50” tower has a voluptuous 48” diameter, and these 300 stems make magic!

I used powerful concepts of visual art to transform relatively humble ingredients into a rare achievement of beauty, technical skill, and value that’s foam-, wire-, and tape-free too!

This is art. The best florists make art. ART is the quality of floristry I make and teach.

Whether you flower for pleasure or profit, if you want to improve your life or build your career with flowers, you have found the right place—welcome!

Stay tuned. Please follow my account, if you don’t already, and share this post with anyone who may love it too. This is but a foretaste of inspiration and empowerment that await YOU in my 2025 season.

Til then, enjoy the view. Take. it. in. Can you FEEL the rusty bucket and SMELL the eucalyptus?

Happy weekend. Let’s grow! xx

Throw open the draperies, inhale the light, and prepare to begin afresh!At least, that’s what I’m doing, and I’ll share ...
01/16/2025

Throw open the draperies, inhale the light, and prepare to begin afresh!

At least, that’s what I’m doing, and I’ll share updates and announcements in due course.

My new year is already FULL of surprises. I’m sitting down today to begin properly scheduling out my 2025 season, and I look forward to catching up TOGETHER soon—stay tuned!

Ah, January! Like the mythical two faces of its namesake Janus, I pause to look both forward and back and hope you’ll jo...
01/08/2025

Ah, January! Like the mythical two faces of its namesake Janus, I pause to look both forward and back and hope you’ll join me.

To plan my 2025 season, I have cleared my calendar and mind to start fresh, free of assumptions. As I consider what in 2024 succeeded, and should be repeated, and what I may change, or offer differently, this year, please send me YOUR ideas and feedback.

In short, how do YOU want to grow this year, and how can I help you do that?

Here on Instagram, what in my content did you love? What might you like to see me change or provide a bit differently? How about on YouTube?

Across all my platforms, have you found my introduction of food and cooking content interesting and helpful? How about my gardening and floristry content and programming? What about opportunities to connect with me personally, in my Learn Live and Learn Online formats?

I cannot cater to every individual taste, but I also never want to presume on your behalf, dear follower. One of the greatest successes of my 2024 was the consistent genuine engagement with YOU, my audience; for without YOU, and YOUR engagement, I have no business and would, indeed, be shouting into the cold and lonely void of the internet.

Therefore, we must continue growing TOGETHER. Happy, healthy relationships are always a two-way street, so now is YOUR time to share what’s on your mind, any special content requests, and specific skills YOU want to learn from ME this year. Let’s talk!

Happy New Year from Historic Horse and Bourbon Country in ravishing Kentucky, USA! Wherever you are in this wild world, ...
01/01/2025

Happy New Year from Historic Horse and Bourbon Country in ravishing Kentucky, USA!

Wherever you are in this wild world, and whatever your 2024 held, let us look ahead with peace, optimism, and the strength derived from growing forward TOGETHER.

My wise mother often says that to truly ENJOY is to be IN JOY; and though I have many excitements and evolutions planned to share with you in this new year, I wish most that the intersection of YOU and me is JOY.

What JOYS do YOU seek this year?

Me? I am absolutely thrilled at the prospect of all I may LEARN.

See you soon! xx

Address

Owensboro, KY
42303

Telephone

+15025367103

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when M. Atherton Baber Studio-Workshop posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to M. Atherton Baber Studio-Workshop:

Videos

New Film on YouTube!
New Film on YouTube!

With that, I’m off to collect some interesting foliage for a class I’m teaching soon. I’ll see YOU at mathertonbaber on YouTube! #ondemand #learnonline #lifelonglearning #lifelonglearner #themoreyouknow #letsgrow #floristry #floristsofinstagram #foamfree #foamfreeflowers #flowerschool #learnfloristry #protips #toptips #howto #entertaining #hospitality #southern #graciousliving #hostwiththemost #home #design #easy #nofail #diy #youcandoit #letsdothis

JOY is for NOW!
JOY is for NOW!

Hello and happy new week, friends, at a time in our country and world when certainty and safety feel thin and frail. Yes, we carry on, and I hope you’ll spend the few seconds it takes to watch this whole message, because it speaks to the beating heart of how we can meaningfully respond to circumstances far beyond our control and grow forward together. Indeed, when we take care of each other, the chandeliers and frothy bouquets fade away to reveal THE POINT of it all. Now’s the time for THAT. So, I hope YOU’ll join me in making and sharing REAL JOY NOW! #community #care #selfcare #joy #sharejoy #spreadjoy #randomactsofkindness #kindness #sharethelove #payitforward #lovethyself #lovethyneighbor #actsofkindness #dogood

New Online Class AND YouTube Film for YOU!
New Online Class AND YouTube Film for YOU!

HYDRANGEAS! They’re many people’s favorite blooms, and I’ve just released an online masterclass teaching YOU everything you need to know to succeed with these infamously persnickety blooms as cut flowers. Click link in bio to visit my website, select Learn Online, and you can take the class on-demand, whenever it suits you. I’ve ALSO given you an inspiring new YouTube film, which you can find there at mathertonbaber, in which I teach you how to use a few strategic ingredients to make easy, elegant, high-impact designs. On these sweltering Summer days, let’s learn ONLINE together! I’ll see YOU there.

New Online Class Available!
New Online Class Available!

I’ve added a brand new class to my website. It’s one of my Foundations of Floristry, that I’m creating for YOU to take on-demand, to start you on the right foot for a whole lifetime of fabulous, reliable floristry without fear. mathertonbaber.com/learn-online or just click link in bio, select Learn Online from the main menu, and we’ll be off to the races! I’ll see YOU in class!

New Film on YouTube!
New Film on YouTube!

Matthew on Hospitality: Share a Little Somethin’ Watch at mathertonbaber on YouTube, and I hope you’ll take my challenge in real life because together, one #littlesomethin at a time, we WILL make OUR world the kind of place WE want to live in! Join me.

mathertonbaber.com/learn-online I’ll see YOU in class!

Join me in my first-ever online floristry classes!
Join me in my first-ever online floristry classes!

Only at mathertonbaber.com/learn-online I’ll see YOU in class!

Learn with me online—COMING SOON!

Online Classes Coming Soon!
Online Classes Coming Soon!

Wherever you are in the world, this is YOUR chance to join ME online for THE BEST educational courses I can give you (and among the very best you’ll find anywhere)! Learn in the comfort of your own home, on the convenience of YOUR schedule, at a tremendous VALUE for the knowledge, skills, and EMPOWERMENT you’ll gain to do more, and more beautifully, efficiently, and elegantly, FOR YOURSELF and your loved ones, all the rest of your days! How’s THAT for return on your investment!?! I could not be more thrilled to launch these classes SOON, so I hope you’ll share my enthusiasm, stay tuned, and JOIN ME!

Let’s Go Shopping!
Let’s Go Shopping!

I can never resist a quick pop through every thrift shop and antiques mall I pass (look how well I did on this Brilliant Cut tray today, by the way, and for mere pennies at that!), and my eagle-eyed collecting is so successful it’s become a cottage industry! In fact, I’ve supplied highly desirable pieces to well-known buyers and even several of the world’s real powerhouse collectors—imagine that, from little old Owensboro, but it’s true! For YEARS, people have asked me to take them antiquing with me, to show them HOW I buy AMAZING treasures at INCREDIBLE bargain prices. So, now’s your chance to join me. I’m even currently discounting my upcoming dates in Louisville and Nashville for a limited time! Click link in bio to visit my website. Select Go Antiquing, and book your day now. We’ll soon be sharing my homemade chicken salad sandwiches and lemon bars as a delightful picnic lunch (that’s just an example of my delicious mid-day menus for your salivating anticipation, always included with the day) on the old stone steps of one of my most trusted and, til now, best-kept secret sources. Whether you browse or buy, for pleasure or profit, you’ll find a more enjoyable, footloose-and-fancy-free day out NOWHERE (and you’ll have fun learning A LOT too)! DM me with any questions, and I’ll see YOU in the shops!

Shortcuts

Share

Category