Elizabeth: Even as a child, Eugene Burkhart had affinity for arranging flowers. He entered
his first competition at a tender age of 9 and then since 1 over 15 hundred of
words for his creations. He has published humorous articles, is an avid teacher
and the recipient of several prestigious awards. For his invaluable contribution in
2005, he received the Pagoda award for life time achievement honored by the
Burks Arts Council.
Eugene invited me to his studio at the Goggle Works in Redding Pennsylvania to
learn more about the fascinating art of flower pressing. We’re here at the Goggle
Works studio with extremely talented press floral artist named Eugene Burkhart.
Eugene, how did you get started in this art?
Eugene: Well, I’d started really back as a very young boy, my grandmother taught me
some things that she knew about gardening and so forth. And then second grade, I
decided I was going to enter the second grade class arrangement in the sea shell.
From there it just continued until college, I was entering the Philadelphia flower
show in 3 dimensional and I kept watching the pressed flower division and I
thought I think I can do this.
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Eugene: It did take me 5 years to win a blue ribbon but it was worth it.
Elizabeth: I’m sure it takes others much longer and have a blue ribbon yet. So now you have
a degree in horticulture. Do you think that sort of helped you with your art like
you can identify flowers and maybe know how they press?
Eugene: I think it definitely has helped me. I feel I know a lot more flowers than maybe
the average person. I had some white roses and they turn brown and you could
really see the veins in the petals. I save them and after I looked at those I thought
gluing those together I can cut a sea horse out of that.
Elizabeth: You do have a book here which has step by step instructions, pictures of different
types of flowers that are pressing. Know what they look like in actual size.
Eugene: It approximately a hundred and fifty flowers and leaves that way if people.