PLANTS IN ARTS & CRAFTS: TRADITIONAL & CONTEMPORARY

Plant forms and natural materials lie at the heart of traditional Thai arts and crafts. As a recently urbanised country with a large rural population, Thailand remains in close touch with its cultural roots in field, forest and seasonal festivity. Each region maintains a lineage of artisans skilled at transforming plants into practical, decorative or devotional objects.

This organic legacy is a rich resource for contemporary designers, from flower arrangements and dry installations to a visual language of foliated motifs, Lai Thai. Whether traditional or modern, these techniques exude the Thai trademarks of grace, intricacy and symbolism – typically handcrafted with that rarest of ingredients: palpable care.

GROWTH IN MATERIALS
Local specialisations reflect Thailand’s diverse ecology, from tropical to temperate, arid to aquatic. Raw cotton, teak leaf and mountain flowers are Lanna indicators, for example. Thanks to communications and modern horticulture of non-local species, Thai florists now mix and match regional and international styles.

Forest products broaden the options. Twirling lianas, outsize seed pods, barks, roots, and eroded logs retrieved from reservoirs are staple ingredients of the Thai ‘rustic chic’ aesthetic.

Saa paper made from mulberry pulp finds historic expression in northern Thai lantern-making. The technique has since infused the gift industry, spawning wrappings, albums, stationery and papier-mâché. These often incorporate pressed flowers, spices, twigs and leaf skeletons.

FORM FOLLOWS FLORA
Inspiration from plants extends beyond substance to symbolism. The shape and surface of traditional decoration exude Lai Thai – whispy patterns abstracted from natural forms like flames, waves and fauna, as well as lotus petals, bamboo joints, leaves and blossoms. The four-petalled prachamyaam motif appears as a protective talisman on anything from costumes to transport.

Containing patterns within patterns, Lai Thai can be scaled up to cover walls, or down to miniature dessert moulds. It can exhibit awesome detail or express Thainess through minimal contours.

GARLANDING GODS
This versatility of line led to Lai Thai-shaped arrangements made using other kinds of flower, from intricate offerings to massed plant pots. The phum altar piece resembles an enlarged lotus-bud, yet often comprises of everlasting globe amaranth heads — themselves pinned in further Lai Thai patterns.

To compound the multi-layering, the patterns, plants and colours used convey auspicious meanings. That’s because flower arrangement has traditionally been an offering. Devotees fashion plants into garlands, shrine vases, folded-leaf trays, dancers’ hair-pieces, and festive decorations, which can incorporate entire banana trees or woven coconut branches.

Another archetype is the organic offering tray, such as the krathong raft floated at the Loy Krathong festival. The complex bai sri arrangement incorporates food at rites like weddings and ‘life extension’ ceremonies to bind spirit to body. Constructed out of folded banana leaf, the bai sri resembles sacred Mount Meru. Aromatic buds top spires radiate from a rice-filled cone, with a boiled egg at the apex.

CONTEMPORARY OFFERINGS
Floristry figures prominently in major events and tourist environments, requiring increased scale without dilution of meaning. The cultural expert Paothong Thongchua interprets authentic methods with modern flair, while preserving floral skills in villages and also creating international arrangements

Stylings by the publisher and photographer Sakchai Guy explore the biological forms of flora, notably in his magazine Lips and gift shop Geo, yet he’s also noted for carpets of petals, a Hindu-derived tradition.

Petal carpets provide a colour splash at occasions from Elle Fashion Week to performances by choreographer Phichet Klunchun, who also draws on the role of the stemmed lotus in Thai dance. Floating of petals and blossoms is a similar ritual trait applied to social and spa settings.

FLORAL FUSION
Other exponents merge ancient and modern. Dulpichai Komolvanich integrates traditional concepts with rustic charm and modern structures, especially using wrought iron supports in Lai Thai forms, for clients like UNESCO and Siam Niramit cultural show.

The internationally influential designer Sakul Intakul delves into form and faith for inventive table settings and installations, including cross-cultural displays for the APEC summit and Queen Sirikit’s state visit to China. He uses a minimum of flowers to focus on the beauty of each bloom, notably in his vases of bronze and ceramic inspired by seeds of Thai plants. An engineer by training, Sakul deconstructs offerings in an architectural manner, as in his tiered Buddhist centrepiece for the Sukhothai hotel, and metal frames wrapped with lotus leaf and studded by lotus heads.

LIVING TRADITIONS
Modern materials and techniques thus feed back into tradition. Always a fusion, Thai arts and crafts aren’t kept fossilised, but thrive like plants, through constant adaptation, cross-fertilisation and re-generation.