Floral Design Inspired

by Nature’s Cycles

A unique blend of wild, textural abundance Designed for the season at hand

with 100% Locally sourced materials

At Wax and Wane Design:
During the growing season, flowers come straight from the garden
✿
Additional floral materials are sourced locally
✿
Designs are always floral foam free
✿
Approaches to “winter flowers” are non-traditional to reflect materials available locally in colder months

Utilizing Design Processes that Value Nature’s Cycles

from growth, to bloom, ripening, rot, rest, & regeneration

This Year’s Waste is NexT Year’s Fertilizer

Hello !

Wax and Wane Design is me —

Kendyll Gage-Ripa (she/her)

Wax and Wane Design is my little floral design studio in Holyoke, MA where I live and work.

The Covid19 pandemic pivoted me toward a slowed down, zoomed in approach to floral expression using entirely materials grown myself.

Within the creative limitations of local seasonable availability & sustainable design, I’m interested in exploring whats possible to create with flowers.

What new shapes can I make using flowers? How and what can I communicate using these ephemeral objects that I tend throughout their entire life cycles? And how can what I make with flowers contribute to health & equity in my community? These are some of the questions I’m in the process of exploring •

This Land

(i) • My family has roots in Holyoke, so—living here and planting seeds in the same ground my grandmother tended—I am connected to the past every day even as I forge ahead.

Along with this connection to my family’s history, my ancestral heritage also makes me the beneficiary of entrenched generational wealth going back to Holyoke’s prosperous industrial age. Despite the loss of income I’ve experienced as a result of Covid19, this inherited privilege has insulated me against the tremendous hardship many in my community face as a result of ongoing systemic inequality coupled with the devastation of the pandemic.

My Grandmother’s Garden in Holyoke, 1970s

(ii) • People in Holyoke and the larger Hampden County, MA area suffer from incredible food and housing insecurity in addition to systemic economic disenfranchisement and the overwhelming way Covid19 has ravaged—in particular, black and brown communities—in Western Massachusetts. Holyoke, as with the rest of Western Massachusetts, is economically divided along racial lines.

In addition, this land that has nourished me and my kin for decades is occupied land rightfully belonging to the Nipmuc Nation. The land in this part of Massachusetts was brutally taken— causing unfathomable harm to the ancestors of Nipmuc Nation members, echoing loudly through the generations, and shaping the circumstances of those who are alive today.

Identify the Indigenous Land You Occupy

(iii) • My own occupied 1/4 acre is the same land where my grandmother planted foxgloves, chrysanthemums, and rudbeckia (that still spring up like weeds). The same ground where I plant flowers, heap compost, and harvest tomatoes.

As a Holyoke resident and local artist benefitting from the privileges of both whiteness and generational wealth (in the form of property/land), I am accountable for making substantive reparations for my family’s unquantifiable benefit from continued occupation of this land.

Grandma's Garden 2.jpeg — My Grandmother’s Garden in Holyole, 1990s

(iiii) • This land—where our homes, schools, roads, and hospitals are built— sustains us all. So, like paying property tax for city services, I believe residents of Holyoke should pay monthly land taxes to the Nipmuc Nation. Until we come together as a city to demand that a land tax be part of every home owners property tax payment and every tenant’s monthly rent payment, I will be making regular voluntary financial contributions to the Nipmuc Nation. I encourage anyone reading this to look up land-tax guidelines put forth by the indigenous Nation whose land you occupy & —if you are able— make regular payments.

Learn About Land Taxes

Healthy Ecosystems

To best nourish the soil, wildlife, & organisms that live within the bounds of my tiny 1/4 acre of growing space, I use entirely organic growing methods: from organic seed varieties, to fertilizer, to pest control. I also utilize no-till gardening practices.

I compost garden and kitchen scraps, use finished compost as fertilizer in the garden, and mulch the garden yearly. My seasonal garden practices are all in service of adding nutrients to the land, building soil health, and causing no harm to those of us who live here.

Sharing with the Community

During the growing season I run a weekly garden stand— offering bouquets, seedlings, extra vegetables and seeds from my garden, and (in the off season) seasonal offerings.

The stand operates on a sliding-scale suggested donation basis, with the lowest donation option always being $0.

Helping Pollinators

Mono-crops like the grasses used in lawns/turf have a negative impact on pollinator health. To help pollinator populations in my neighborhood, I am replacing all the turf on my 1/4 acre lot with pollinator friendly perennial plantings. This will increase pollinator populations by providing an increased food supply.

In order to initially get rid of the lawn I’m using cardboard topped with a thick layer of composted wood chips—(sheet mulching). This way, the decaying grass beneath the cardboard will add a nutrient rich layer of organic matter to the soil.