The Flower Maker

Boehm Porcelain in Trenton, New Jersey, is a world-renown for its porcelain collectibles of flowers, birds and other animals. Its collectors are royalty and Hollywood, businessmen and artisans.

For over 50 years, Boehm artisans have been creating pieces the ancient Oriental way, with each sculpture handcrafted as close to nature as possible. Nereida Saganowski, flower maker, is one of those artisans with a specialty in forming petals.

She works with a team of designers, including a petal designer. “Our petals are cast with the help of a designer, and then molds are made,"¯ she says. “We dissect petals from real flowers and make the molds from that."

She assembles the flowers, some with over 30 petals, plus the center and other parts. “I have to determine the number of petals and we have to make it as close to the real flower as possible." On a rose bush no two flowers are the same, so she looks at a number of them to get a true feel of the shape of the petals, the stamens and pistils. “We have to use our imaginations of the real piece."¯

Saganowski has been working with porcelain for 21 years, first with pressed molds that give a heavy piece, then later at Boehm with bone algae. “Here you see the real veins on the petals. They come out of the mold very moist and are refrigerated in plastic bags. This allows me to shape and mold the petals any way I want before they start drying out."

Each petal is made separately and glued together with porcelain, the same material as the flower, so it all shrinks together under heat.

But first the flowers are dried for three days before they are ready for the kiln. They're fired at 2400 degrees overnight. “Bone porcelain must be glazed and that takes another fire. Every time a color pigment is applied to them it requires a fire so the color can stay forever. There's not a way that we can speed up the process. If you order a flower and we don't have it in stock, it takes a month. Porcelain is very porous. I place them in the kiln myself. I do follow them making sure everything is done properly."

Every summer Saganowski plants her own organic flowers - iris, hydrangea, and roses.

“Every place I go, I find myself attracted to the flowers. I like working with flowers. I love creating. You know when you love something, you put your heart in it. That's how I feel. The flowers are my babies."¯

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published February 11, 2005