Sarah Cioni gives back to Marshall fire victims

The 17th century is considered the "Golden Age" of Dutch painting. Many are familiar with such masters as Rembrandt, and what was particularly notable about Dutch painting at the time was its developing focus on still life. These still life paintings are abundant with flowers and abundant with inspiration for local florist Sarah Cioni.

"[In 2020] I was on a phone interview and [the reporter] asked me what's my favorite design and I instantly said 'Dutch master painter.' It's always been my favorite, it's very dramatic," said Cioni with a laugh. "Then, they asked me who my favorite painter is and I drew a blank. That has been eating at me for two years."

Fast forward to last December and Cioni decided to start working on her new spring line of candles for her shop Belle Terre Floral in Niwot, but she realized she'd also need to design the candle labels. So, she turned to her favorite source of inspiration, the Dutch masters, but made a surprising discovery. "I found out there were female Dutch master painters and I thought, 'Why are we calling them masters? I'm going to name each one of the candles after these painters.'"

Cioni found five Dutch, female painters–Rachel Ruysch, Anna Ruysch, Clara Peeters,, Maria van Oosterwijck, and Margaretha Haverman–and picked one of each of their paintings to serve as inspiration for the candles and their labels. Once the candles go up for sale, each will have its own care card with a short biography of the painter on the reverse side. The spring candle line will be called the Dutch Mistress Collection.

Once she knew which paintings she'd use, Cioni flew in 210 flowers from Los Angeles in order to create the arrangements. But then, the Marshall Fire happened.

"[I thought], 'what am I going to do with all these stems? I can't personally donate to everyone's GoFundMe, but I can give them flowers.' I posted that I would like to donate and my Facebook page pinged all night long."

Cioni put together 21 flower arrangements and delivered them with the help of five other women.

"I feel like the flowers say the words I can't come up with myself," she said. "When you're delivering a flower arrangement to someone who's lost everything but a teacup, you don't know what to say... It was absolutely incredible and I had no idea in the beginning when I set out to design these candle labels that the flowers would be reused to show love and kindness."

For Cioni, flowers go far beyond their life expectancy of a few days–they bring people together and they bring people joy. She first realized this during the initial COVID lockdown, when she virtually shared arrangements via her social media pages, and again with delivering flowers to the fire victims. "A flower isn't going to rebuild a house, but it's going to warm somebody's heart."

All of the flowers Cioni originally bought for the Dutch Mistress Collection are gone and she said that "it would be lovely" if people wanted to donate flowers to continue this effort to support families affected by the fire.

To stay up to date with Cioni and Belle Terre, she can be found on Facebook and Instagram @belleterrefloral or online at https://www.belleterrefloral.com/