{"id":509,"date":"2021-05-24T11:01:48","date_gmt":"2021-05-24T11:01:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fashionscoop.co.za\/?p=509"},"modified":"2021-05-24T11:01:49","modified_gmt":"2021-05-24T11:01:49","slug":"when-art-and-spirit-collide-magic-happens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fashionscoop.co.za\/index.php\/2021\/05\/24\/when-art-and-spirit-collide-magic-happens\/","title":{"rendered":"WHEN ART AND SPIRIT COLLIDE, MAGIC HAPPENS"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Award-winning botanical artist\u00a0Jenny Hyde-Johnson\u00a0is the designer behind the gorgeous artwork on the Flowstone Gin labels. The artist unpacks her collaboration with Flowstone Gin founders, Mark and Glyn French, her inspiration during the creative process and her passion for all things botanical.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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When Flowstone Gin\u2019s founders \u00ad\u2013\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad mother-and-son duo Mark and Glyn French \u2013 were developing their acclaimed and award-winning gins, as luck would have it, their neighbour Jenny Hyde-Johnson would provide the most valuable insight. When summing up this collaboration, Mark is clearly grateful for Jenny\u2019s contribution, \u201cIn addition to being our neighbour and close family friend, Jenny is a world-renowned botanical artist. Not only did she do our label artwork, but she was also the botanical expert that helped us identify the flavours that would eventually become Flowstones\u2019 gins.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenny grew up on the outskirts of Johannesburg where an abundance of wildlife and indigenous flora nurtured her love for nature. After a successful career in graphic design, which included 25 years in which she co-owned and ran her own successful design studio, Jenny moved to a farm in the Magaliesberg area where she devoted herself to painting fulltime.  When describing her body of work, she says  most of her art is super realism, \u201cand this is mainly dictated by botanical art which stems from a scientific and medicinal background. Books were illustrated through the ages depicting the uses of various parts of a plant and one had to be able to identify the plant from the paintings\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her body of work has been exhibited locally and abroad and is on display at The Royal Botanical, Kew Gardens in the United Kingdom. Jenny was also published  in Modern Botanical Masterpieces<\/em> and named \u2018best in show\u2019 at the 2016 Planet Exhibition in Kirstenbosch, Cape Town.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenny\u2019s artwork works wonderfully on Flowstone\u2019s bottle labels. It effectively tells the stories around the use of the botanicals featured in the gins. For the process of creating the label artwork for the bottle label, \u201cI combined the relevant blooms, berries, and fruits pertinent to each flavour in the centre of the label, and then filled the lesser areas of the painting with the typical ingredients unique to all gins. These ingredients include angelica, citrus (lemon, orange) cardamom pods, star anise etc\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The collaboration extended beyond artwork though, alongside Glyn, Jenny\u2019s expertise in botanics lead to them identifying the key flavours that have become synonymous with the Flowstone brand. Jenny says, \u201cIt was work in progress for quite some time as various flowers, blossoms, berries, fruits and drupes were auditioned as they came into season.\u201d When it came to identifying each botanical flavour she adds, \u201cAt times it was the overriding flavour such as the fruit of the Combretum \u2013 Bushwillow fruit. However,  most of the credit goes to Glyn, who pioneered the original recipes. I merely suggested suitable wild botanicals from the Highveld.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which Flowstone gin is her favourite? \u201cThe Flowstone Bushwillow is my absolute favourite followed by Snuffbox with a cinchona mixer. Flowstone gins have such unique flavours I do not like to add too much. Toasted cashews and a slice of horned cucumber when in season are superb and<\/em> pomegranates add lovely colour.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having won numerous awards for her work, the achievement that stands out for Jenny is, \u201cthe first gold medal I received at the Kirstenbosch Biennale in 2006. It was the biggest surprise. However, the international awards must shine through as one is competing on a much larger stage against a vast number of artists\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenny is incredibly proud of the work she\u2019s achieved with Flowstone, \u201cI have watched the brand grow from strength to strength and I feel hugely proud as they break onto the international stage. A bit like watching your child spread their wings.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Flowstone range of gin is available online at https:\/\/flowstone.co.za\/<\/a> as well as Makro and Takealot. To connect with Flowstone, visit Facebook at @FlowstoneGin<\/a> and Instagram @flowstonegin<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Award-winning botanical artist\u00a0Jenny Hyde-Johnson\u00a0is the designer behind the gorgeous artwork on the Flowstone Gin labels. The artist unpacks her collaboration with Flowstone Gin founders, Mark and Glyn French, her inspiration during the creative process and her passion for all things botanical. When Flowstone Gin\u2019s founders \u00ad\u2013\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad mother-and-son duo Mark and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":511,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle",""],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fashionscoop.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fashionscoop.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fashionscoop.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fashionscoop.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fashionscoop.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=509"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fashionscoop.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":512,"href":"https:\/\/fashionscoop.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509\/revisions\/512"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fashionscoop.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fashionscoop.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fashionscoop.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fashionscoop.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}