Today we’d like to introduce you to Antonio Bond.
Hi Antonio, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I grew up in South Austin. My father was a veteran and my mother a school teacher. I was taught too be self-sufficient and unapologetically true to myself. Art has always been in my life. As a child, we went to see lots of concerts soaking up all the live music the city had to offer. I started working at the famous Liberty Lunch in high school and was a part of the punk scene as well. I bartended at live music venues most of my life after that and picked up a day job at a grocery store. The whole time I continued to create art. I played with painting, sketching, sculpture, and photography. In my early 20s, I started looking for a way I could use art to make a living. Thats when flowers found me. I had moved into the Floral department at the grocery store I worked at. I loved it. I loved making sculptural arrangements and I loved the way my art made people feel. I left the grocery store and was looking for a way I could use art to make a living. I took my skills I learned working with flowers and started building projects out of my living room. I’ve always collected things I found fascinating. I would walk through creek beds and collect fossils. I would salvage beautiful broken statues that people were tossing out. I spent time at the lake and loved the look of twisted old stumps and driftwood that washed up. I found bones and all kinds of things. As I built flower arrangements, they became more and more sculptural and I eventually found myself incorporating all of these treasures I collected into my arrangements. I loved the way these things helped tell a story. I loved the way the flowers gave new life to something that would have been lost to time. That’s where Transplants Design was born. In my living room on a fold out table with beautiful plants and broken treasures. Since then I have had the opportunity to do florals for amazing weddings, parties, and all kinds of events. In 2017, I was fortunate enough to have a book published of my work called Transplants: Eclectic Floral Design (Blue Star Press). After that, I had the opportunity to work as an actor with Director Dan Winters in his short film “Tone”. Then, in 2021, I was a contestant on HBOmax’s floral competition series called Full Bloom (season 2).
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
We all have things that give pressure to our lives. It’s what we do with that tension that matters. Any of the twists and turns life has had to offer me, in my eyes, were opportunities to grow. Those obstacles became stepping stones towards expressing myself in art. Some challenges were tougher than others. But, I worked all of them out in the pursuit of artist expression.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I am mostly known for my work in the floral world. I have a sculptural approach to my arrangements. I like my arrangements (everything from terrariums to tablescapes) to tell a story. I like the viewer to experience a lyrical journey of the eyes. I also do all of my own photography. Traveling across the country, I’ve seen backroads all over from the mountains to the sea. My camera is always with me. I’m also into making collages. It’s fantastic to capture unique snippets from vintage books and have them converge into a visual storyline. It’s a lot like flower arranging. Every piece is unique. The challenge is finding the way the pieces want to work together.
We’re always looking for the lessons that can be learned in any situation, including tragic ones like the Covid-19 crisis. Are there any lessons you’ve learned that you can share?
Covid-19 hit the floral business very hard. Lots of growers went out of business. Because of the distribution crisis the pandemic created it led to millions of dollars of product loss around the world. So, like in most industries, the cost of doing business has gone up. Additionally, less gatherings lead to less need for flowers. Many brick and mortar florists shops went out of business. I learned that even in times of crisis and economic slowdown that people still need to see art. So, even though I had less floral projects to work on…I used that experience to explore the world of collage.
Contact Info:
- Email: transplantsfloral@gmail.com
- Website: www.transplantsdesign.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/transplantsfloral/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Transplantsfloral/
