Chicken wire, sticks, and dried hydrangeas, put to an artful purpose, are the tools of the trade for dried floral designer Maria Salcines. During Wiscasset Art Walk on Thursday, Aug. 29, from 4 to 7 p.m., Salcines will install a cascading arrangement of dried florals in Wiscasset Village. Although much planning will have gone into the presentation, Salcines will be improvising the installation throughout the evening. Visitors are welcome to stop by to watch, ask and enjoy.

According to Salcines, who lives and works at her farm, Fogwood Gardens in Arrowsic, she’ll start with a concept for the Wiscasset Village arrangement but will fill in the details during the WAW evening. A branch or stick will run horizontally along a railing and a structure of chicken wire will cascade down. Salcines will add “posies” along the branch so that “it will look like it’s in bloom,” she said.

She’ll then fill the chicken wire structure with garden flowers that she is now harvesting and drying, including hydrangea, Mountain Mint and Russian Sage. She’ll add a few dried “wild elements,” and some fresh Sweet Annie for fragrance. The final installation will look like “a waterfall of flowers spilling onto the sidewalk,” she said.

Salcines describes the work she does as “farmed art.” Everything is cultivated on the farm she owns with her husband, Keith, who can be found every Friday at this season’s Wiscasset Farmer’s Market. Salcines grows flowers specifically for drying, she emphasizes, harvesting them when they’re at their peak of color and freshness. She preserves them by natural drying when they’re at their best.

Salcines is also on a mission “to change the narrative that flowers are disposable. They can last a season or more,” she said. Her own dried flower wedding bouquet is still beautiful after two years. Actually, “I can keep pieces alive for as long as someone wants them,” by adding newly dried flowers to freshen up the arrangement, she said. 

Salcines will return to Wiscasset Village at the end of the weekend following Wiscasset Art Walk to remove her installation and will repurpose the dried flowers into other arrangements. “We do need beauty as a crop. We are nurtured by the beauty of flowers.” Salcines added that using dried flowers from the garden is a way of “preserving Maine’s ephemeral summer.”

The final Wiscasset Art Walk of the 2024 season is on Sept. 26, from 4 to 7 p.m. Enjoy the Village collection of fine galleries, one-of-a-kind shops, a variety of excellent food stops including MAZU food truck, and lots of sidewalk activities.In 2024, the businesses that support the many free WAW activities and performers are Lead Sponsor Islebrook Village at Wiscasset, and Major Sponsors Ames True Value, Big Barn Coffee, BIRCH Home Furnishings & Gifts, Bradbury Art & Antiques, Carriage House Gardens, First National Bank, IndustrialME, J. Edward Knight & Co., Jodie’s Café and Bakery, Peter Eaton Antiques, Red’s Eats, Rock Paper Scissors, Sherri Dunbar/Tim Dunham Realty, and Water St. Kitchen.