With a master’s degree in fine art, a background in carpentry, and her own floral design business, you could say Darcy Hammer is a jack-of-all-trades—and a creative one at that. She studied sculpture at Washington University in St. Louis and has spent her career creating beautiful objects: tablescapes, bridal bouquets, and even set designs.
Darcy developed her love and knowledge of floral design while working as counter help at Winston Flowers on Boylston Street in Boston in the early 1990s. “I would watch the floral designer carefully and learn all I could,” she says. “When I began designing arrangements, I started getting lines of people asking for my bouquets—it really became a passion of mine.” Today Darcy lives in Byfield and continues her numerous artistic trades. Her mother, Sue Hammer, and husband, Tom Kurland, who is also an artist, help her with Le Reve, her floral and garden design business. She also works with her father, Ed Hammer, on house restoration projects and designing arbors and fences. Their carpentry business is aptly named Hammer & Hammer. And if those two companies were not enough, Darcy has also signed on as a prop stylist for Anchor Artists in Boston.
Darcy believes that setting a table in a unique way only heightens the season’s festivities. Because of her background in sculpture, she is not afraid to use unexpected materials and “build up” her designs. Her advice to decorators this winter: Be creative, infuse a table with individual personality, and use native plants whenever possible.
The following four tablescapes—dreamed up by Darcy and inspired by the North Shore’s coast, farms, woodlands, and villages—are sure to get your creative juices flowing this holiday. lerevefloraldesign.com