Episode 10: Artist Spotlight: Drawing Inspiration Close to Home

This week, we get to know Stine Evensen, the artist behind the IG account, @tabletakes. With only watercolour paper and paint, Stine is able to create these wonderfully intricate wildflowers and common flowers that she sees everyday around her surroundings. Her IG account is filled with bright and beautifully photographed images of her creations. She was a bit of a mystery to us as she seldom (if ever) shares much of her personal self on social media so it was a joy to finally meet her face to face (albeit virtually) and get a chance to hear her talk about herself and her art.

Read and listen to Stine as she talks with Quynh, Jessie and Priscilla, about her process, her inspiration, and her art.

1. Stine, tell us a bit about your paper flower business.

I make wildflowers based on plants I find growing freely in my neighborhood. If I’m traveling, I photograph plants and make them later. If someone needs a specific flower, I love making that too, and I even enjoy coming up with the occasional fictional flower.

2. How would you describe your paper flowers and/or your aesthetic?

The flowers I make are made from watercolor paper and watercolors. Give me some floral tape and some metal tread - and I would have no idea what to do with it! I really like Tiffany Turner’s book and to see what crepe paper- or other paper florists do, but I’ve never followed a tutorial. I like to come up with my own ways. Just like with cooking. It means we sometimes eat failed food, but usually it works out fine. I also have fun with expanding the field a little, for example by making lichen growing on small paper stones; they are simple, everyday objects that feel magical when you look closely.

3. What do you find the most challenging and rewarding about having a paper flower business?

What I love most is how this practice has put me in contact with all these fantastic makers and flower lovers out there. The continuous search for new flowers has also made me feel at home in my own city. Now I know all these hidden corners of green treasures. Designing standardized objects and approaching markets outside of my circle of friends and family is challenging. Working with display is also not a favorite thing of mine, but I make a lot of self-standing flower- and stone objects. They can sit on their own on a desk or a shelf.

4. What advice would you give to new paper flower artists?

Work from real models whenever you can, even when realism isn’t your main goal. It’s such a rewarding task to highlight our immediate, natural environment.

5. What’s one tool you unexpectedly fell in love with and now use regularly?

What I like most is that I have so few tools needed. All I use can fit in a small box. That said, they are usually spread out in a big mess.

Want to learn more about Stine? Follow her on her Instagram @tabletakes.