Words and Wildflowers Creative Prompts – Issue 95

We LOVE research and learning as a way to get inspired and boost ideas and creativity!! So, Kenzie and I are going to be sharing the inspiration that we collect here in our second newsletter…. once a week!!!

Here’s how it works:

We provide the inspiration. You interpret it however you wish… any medium, any size. It is meant to inspire lettering and floral art combined together. But, you can:

Just do the florals, just do the lettering, or combine them together.
Use the provided quote for your piece or select your own.
Use colors from one of the inspiration images or select your own favorites
Create the floral art… as a still life in a vase, a single flower, a border, a pattern, a bouquet

Hope you will create with us and post your work at #wordsandwildflowers2026 and tag @lorisiebert.studio and @snippetsofwhimsy

Quote of the week…

“And yes, this world

is shattered, everywhere

but there is glue

and it is me

and it is you

picking up pieces

of each other

to get through.”

— Donna Ashworth

Inspiration of the week: Victoria MacKenzie Childs

Victoria MacKenzie-Childs (August 26, 1948 – March 4, 2026) was an American ceramic artist who, along with her husband Richard, founded the luxury home goods firm MacKenzie-Childs in 1983. A beacon of Madison Avenue in New York City in the 1990s, their “chic boutique” showcased their distinctly whimsical style that the New York Post once described as “Mary Poppins meets Alice in Wonderland.” They lost control of the company in 2001 following bankruptcy proceedings.

MacKenzie-Childs was born August 26, 1948, in San Francisco. She moved to Madison, Indiana, in 1960 when her father got a job as a sales manager for Grote Manufacturing. She was active in 4-H and an artist, winning a blue ribbon at the Indiana State Fair for one of her ceramics. In 1966, she graduated from Madison Consolidated High School. That year, the family moved to Indianapolis, Indiana.

MacKenzie-Childs earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Indiana University in 1970. She married Stephen Nelson Conrad on April 11, 1970, in Indianapolis. She went on to take graduate courses at Harvard and Radcliffe. She graduated in 1977 from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. Before considering enrolling at Alfred, she learned pottery pioneer Wayne was headed to Alfred to teach. Determined to work with him, the school became her prime prospect. Higby eventually became her teacher and mentor, and both she and Richard received their Master of Fine Arts with him. In 2017, Victoria and Richard delivered Alfred University’s 181st commencement address.

Following graduate school, Victoria and Richard moved to Stoke Gabriel in Devon, England, where they worked for a small pottery store and Richard taught art at South Devon College. They also designed and made clothing for stage and evening wear.

In 1994, the couple received a joint regional Entrepreneur of the Year Award at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York. She was the mother of organic textile designer Heather Chaplet.

Hand lettering inspiration of the week: Jean Charles Blais

Jean Charles Blais, born in 1956, in Nantes, France, is an artist who studied at the Beaux-Arts de Rennes from 1974 to 1979. He gained recognition in the art world in 1981 after participating in the exhibition “Finir en beauté” curated by Bernard Lamarche-Vadel, which marked the emergence of a new generation of artists who freely expressed themselves across various art forms, cultures, and values.

Blais gained notable success in the early 1980s for his paintings created from discarded materials such as torn posters, newspapers, and other unconventional items found on the streets. In his paintings, he highlights the slightest imperfections and unevenness of the materials, and his works are characterized by a focus on the representation of the figure. It was also at this time that he sparked the curiosity of Catherine Issert, whose gallery, based in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, has accompanied him for the last 40 years.