Teaching/learning

I invited two uber-talents to give little guest-lectures/demos in my new online tablescape class on Skillshare: Kelly Cuadra from Brown Paper Design, who will be sharing a centerpiece demo as well as floral design tips and Jennifer Chong, who will be sharing her tips on tablescape photography.

I am so enjoying the process of creating these classes. Kelly, Jennifer and I were talking about teaching, and how crazy it is to intellectualize something that you feel comes pretty  ‘naturally’ to you (in my case styling, in Kelly’s case floral design and in Jen’s case photography).  Through teaching I have actually learned so much about my own creative process in order to make it possible for others to ‘see what I see.’ 

I’m learning for my co-teachers too. There are several things that Kelly mentioned in her tips that I am excited to implement/try out on my Thanksgivingukkah tabletop–one example is to use opaque vases/vessels as to hide mechanics and/or messy looking stems–smart.  I often go for ball jars and glass pitchers on my tabletops as vases and it’s true that the stems in the glass always look messy–and then the jar becomes the thing people are looking at instead of the flowers. Opaque vases on my tables from now on, thank you very much.

Teaching is so gratifying and one of the best parts is how much I’m learning along the way….Have you also found that in teaching YOU are actually the one that comes away with so much new knowledge?