An image from “The Shadow of a Petal: Floral Design Inside the County Jail,” on view through July 19 at The Branch Museum of Design (Photo by Amy Robinson)
The testimonials are powerful: “I’m so grateful for how you made me feel about not only my design, but how you made me feel worthy about me.”
The endorsement, one among many, comes from an incarcerated individual housed in Chesterfield County Jail, describing their experience learning how to create a floral design in a series of classes called Floral Therapy. The nature-based workshops are part of the county’s Helping Addicts Recover Progressively curriculum, which also includes 12-step programs, classes on meditation skills and sessions that help people move beyond addictive thinking.
“Our operating theory is, if we can link your crime back to you having an addiction, we would like to treat the addiction so you don’t continue to commit crimes,” says Bailey Hilliard, inmate rehabilitation programs manager at the Chesterfield County Sheriff’s Office.
Becca Amos, a psychotherapist, clinical social worker and florist, and floral designer Meredith Wheeler, owner of Secret Flowers in the Fan, started the Floral Therapy sessions in January 2024, building on classes Amos had been teaching at the jail.
Amos’ work helping others through nature began about 10 years ago, when she got involved with the Horticultural Society of New York’s Greenhouse Program at the prison on Rikers Island in New York City. “The program’s decades old,” she says. “I worked full time on Rikers Island for about four years.”
She learned floral design and how to use the process to help people heal. “It was just the most natural outlet for processing grief,” she says. “That’s the part I focus on.”
A portrait of a Floral Therapy participant and her design from the “Shadow of a Petal” exhibition titled “There Is Shatira” (Photo by Sydnee Schorr)
After moving to Richmond, Amos started teaching classes in Chesterfield. “I did vocational horticulture programs at Chesterfield County Jail through the adult education department in 2021,” she says. “I did about [three] years before starting a therapeutic program.”
Amos’ efforts inspired the jail to install some amenities one normally wouldn’t find in such a setting. “We have two raised bed gardens in the back of the jail because of that program,” Hilliard says, adding that she’s seen people’s demeanor change because of the gardens. “You don’t have plants in jail. You don’t have flowers in jail.”
The adult education classes led Amos to connect with Wheeler, who creates large-scale floral projects, including wedding arrangements and designs for brands such as Porsche and the Apple TV+ series “Swagger,” which was filmed in Richmond.
“I was showing students a slideshow that I had piled together of a bunch of my favorite florists’ arrangements to give a small tutorial at the jail,” Amos says. “I had ripped a bunch of Meredith’s images off her Instagram, and a student became really enamored. So, I sent [Wheeler] a message and said, ‘We don’t know each other, but I would like you to know that you changed this guy’s world.’”
The pair decided to collaborate on a workshop inside the jail. The classes, which are voluntary and divided by gender, begin like a biology class, Wheeler says. “How flowers pollinate, the life cycle of a flower, things like that,” she explains. “Then we go into a guided meditation with a flower. They would hold it, just really feel, smell and embody that flower while Becca’s reading a guided meditation. That’s honestly my favorite part.”
The sensory approach is based on a curriculum called Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement, Hilliard says. “It’s teaching people how to savor and live in the moment,” as well as learn tools to handle life once they’re released, she says. “It’s meant to teach people how to get through a craving, get through a trigger, enjoy the small things in life.”
Hilliard says watching the men in the classes has been the biggest surprise. “Oftentimes these men who are tattooed from head to toe, who could be perceived by society as being scary, [are] posing with their floral arrangements that they made and [saying], ‘Hey, can you take a picture of this so I can send it to my family?’ They were really proud of it.” Students’ completed floral designs are donated to Richmond Community Pantries.
A Floral Therapy design titled “Resilient Woman” (Photo by Sydnee Schorr)
In addition to the workshops, Amos and Wheeler wanted to add “this sort of outside component to educate the community about what goes on in that space,” Amos says, “the particular challenges to creativity and accessing nature.”
Floral exhibits are not allowed inside the jail, Hilliard says, but Amos and Wheeler created a work-around by bringing in photographers Amy Robison and Sydnee Schorr to document the participants’ work on their arrangements, take portraits and capture the completed arrangements in a gallery setting at Secret Flowers. Then they created posters to hang on the walls of the housing unit inside the jail.
“Something about jail that a lot of people probably don’t know is, it’s just concrete. There’s nothing on the walls,” Hilliard says. “You don’t get pictures of your family; you don’t get pictures of nature.”
Photos by Amy Robinson
The photographs, along with completed floral arrangements and quotes from program participants, will also appear in a weeklong exhibition at The Branch Museum of Design, running through July 19. The opening on July 11 was captured on video so incarcerated participants can see attendees’ responses to their work, while Floral Therapy students who have been released attended in person.
“This project explores how creative, nature-based interventions can foster emotional expression, healing and self-reflection — even in the most restrictive environments,” Wheeler says.
A Floral Therapy participant echoes the idea, noting in their testimonial, “I chose the title [‘Serenity’ for my design] because this is what I am seeking in my soul and in my life today.”
“The Shadow of a Petal: Floral Design Inside the County Jail” runs through July 19 at The Branch Museum of Design. Admission is $10, and proceeds from the exhibition benefit Helping Addicts Recover Progressively.
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