We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Molly Tiesma. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Molly below.

Molly, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

I have always been an artist- from a very early age I was drawn to the act of creating and knew that I would find a way to make my life’s work rooted in creativity. I studied art and design all through college, exploring a broad range of mediums from performance to sculpture to video and everywhere in between. When I graduated with my BFA from Grand Valley State University in 2016, I found myself working in a flower shop, and fell head over heels in love with the work of floristry. As I dove deeper in to the career of floral design, I found that I needed to combine my roots in the art world with the job that I loved so dearly. In 2021, I decided to break away from a traditional shop format, and break out on my own, launching my own floral identity. As I considered where I wanted to go with my floral career, I found it is deeply important to me to showcase florals as an artistic expression, and to push the boundaries of what we think of when we hear “floral design”. Far too often, florals are simply thought of in a traditional aspect- bouquets for weddings, funerals, birthdays. I’ve made it my mission to shift these perceptions of what floral design can be, expanding them into a conceptual artistic medium. Collaboration has always been deeply important to me as well- combining forces with other creatives is a core belief and expression of my creative process. Lately, I’ve been working alongside a dear friend of mine, Bradley Lohman, a photographer in Grand Rapids, to explore this very concept.

Bradley and I have been shooting together for nearly 5 years, exploring the concepts of collaboration, hand in hand with a deep connection to nature, mutual trust, and the ethereal and fantastical imagery. Together, we’ve created a body of work that celebrates collaboration and the beauty that can come from this connection. In April, we have a show together at the DAAC in downtown Grand Rapids to showcase the vast body of work we’ve created together. Bradley shoots in a deep, moody style, and has an incredible vision for light, location scouting, and storytelling through imagery, which combines beautifully with my use of floral design and costuming to create characters, typically transforming myself into these fantastical beings, but sometimes incorporating other models as well. To create this work, we shoot exclusively at night, and venture deep into remote locations throughout Michigan, tromping through the woods with costumes and camera equipment in hand. We’ve been lost in the woods, foraged to create wild wearable creations, driven miles into the night to shoot at rivers, lakes and dunes, and soon we’re venturing out to other national parks to create in other landscapes, specifically heading to the deserts of Arizona and the Grand Canyon.

Together, we’ve created a body of work that is both eerie and ethereal, creating wild dreamscapes that transport the viewers into dreams and nightmares. This show in April will be our first time showing our work to the general public, and we couldn’t be more excited to share our vision for collaboration.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

Through my time studying art at Grand Valley, I dove deeply into exploring as many mediums as possible, trying to explore the boundaries of creative expression, not wanting to tie myself to one specific form. It was a challenge to conceptualize a career path that encompassed all my passions and my desire for flexibility. I am so deeply grateful to have found floral design as a career path. Through my education, I had a mentor that helped me on my trajectory who recommended that I try florals as a job. The next day, I applied to a local flower shop and started out in their sales department, and hungrily ate up anything anyone would teach me about design. Through my hunger for knowledge, I eventually became the head of their wedding department, and in February of 2021, decided to go out on my own and launch Fae.floral. Fae.floral has been so much more than just a floral brand- it’s been a form of creative identity for me- allowing me the freedom to create florals not only for weddings and events, but creatively. I’ve been able to create florals for fashion editorials, music videos, album art, and so many other unique projects. I also design for weddings, and have met and created for some of most amazing couples I’ve had the pleasure of meeting, who are open to exploring florals as a narrative piece of their wedding, telling their love story through blooms. It is my mission through Fae.Floral to spark a love of flowers in all my clients. My motto is “manifest happiness” because that’s what flowers are to me — the physical manifestation of happiness in this world. I’m committed to telling a new type of story through my flowers with passion, love, sustainability and inclusivity punctuating every sentence. Openness, energy and creativity consistently yields the most wonderful creations. Through my floral designs, I now get to have full freedom in my creative expression, and also get to travel the country to design florals through freelancing, which has been the joy of my life. I am full of gratitude for all the individuals that have supported me and helped me get to this point.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

Collaboration over competition. I know it sounds trite, but it’s so deeply important. If we work to uplift and support one another both within our individual industries but across creative mediums as well, we all can gain so much more inspiration and depth of connection. Creatives are unique, and deserve to be supported and uplifted by each other and the greater community. Look within your community for new ways to support local creatives, and to shop locally as much as possible.

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

In high school, I read Julia Child’s Autobiography, My Life In France, and it absolutely formed my world view. In the book, Julia Child explores the wild life that she and her husband lived, and her expression of her relationship to her work deeply inspired me. She viewed her passion for cooking as her sharing love and light with the world, empowering and inspiring generations to explore that spark. It wasn’t just about the act of cooking, it was about exploring and doing things that scare you, to be unafraid in the face of passion and exploration. She truly lived her life on these principles, and it carried her through the many challenges she faced. One can see from her legacy of just how powerful that positive outlook was. I want to live my life to share my passion, not just to share a love of flowers, but to share the light and love and spark that following your passion can bring.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.faefloraldesign.com
• Instagram: @fae.floral
• Facebook: Fae.Floral
• Other: Bradley’s work can be found on Instagram at @bradley.loh and online at www.bradlohman.com

Image Credits
Bradley Lohman