Features

A florist amongst the ruins

By WANDEKA GAYLE, Staff Reporter

Sharon Stewart shows how she creates her beautiful bouquets, which she sells at the Coronation Market. - Wandeka Gayle Photos

SHE MAY HAVE been a high school drop-out but 19-year-old Sharon Stewart of Ray Town, downtown Kingston is no failure.

Instead of idly walking the streets, she makes beautiful bouquets and she and her mom, 36-year-old Paula Henry, sell them in the Coronation Market in downtown Kingston. "It is fun and you can make money out of it," she told THE STAR with obvious pride.

However, this is not the end of the road for Sharon as she nurtures hopes of getting her O level subjects and becoming a customs officer. "I used to attend Seaforth High but because of financial problems I haffi stop," she explained, "But I just have to tek mi time so mi can attend school."

What seems like a simple technique, Sharon insists demands some level of skill and creativity. "When we get the flowers, a design just come in mi head and I just arrange it like that," she said. "Sometimes I keep the colour scheme."

Armed with gloves, a bottle of plaster and cement, plastic or crockery pots and plastic covered flowers purchased at the arcade, Sharon sets to work each day. The technique includes first bending flowers into shape, adjusting colours, then mixing plaster and cement into a paste.

"The more water you add the longer it takes to dry," she said, "but usually it should take three to five minutes to dry."

Game plan

She reasoned that many of her friends who had also left school were either pregnant or lying about idly at home but this was not the path she chose because she had a game plan.

"I look forward fi go back a school and get my aim in life," she said while bending stems and re-attaching petals.

She also stated that a lot of young persons would turn up their nose at her but she knew where she was going.

Sharon and her mother together make a hard-working team. While Paula sells tablecloths and curtains, Sharon arranges between 20 and 50 bouquets per day.

"On a good day we mek like from $12,000 to $25,000," she said, but admitted that things were going slowly presently thus floral arrangements were going from $250 to $1200.

Paula, who has been a vendor for 25 years, only just recently took up floral arrangements. "Last year, December (2002), tings was very hard, nutten neva gwaan so me sey me wi start sell flowas," she explained. "Sometime di money low but it good at Christmas."

"Sharon design some nice flowas dis Christmas," her 68-year-old grandmother, Beryl Simpson, told THE STAR with a wide wrinkled grin. "Yes, man, some nice flowas."