Spring at Magnolia Market: 2023

by Magnolia

Published on February 9, 2023

Stepping into Magnolia Market after it’s been transformed for a new season never gets old. Over and over again, our team harnesses their creativity and craftsmanship to build displays that embody our theme and create a one-of-a-kind shopping experience. This spring all across Magnolia, we’re exploring the theme of patience and how it shows us that some things are worth waiting for.

Here, we're sharing about how the team is bringing that theme to life at Magnolia Market—from initial concepts to final displays.

The Inspiration

As a company, we set out to redefine patience as something worthy of our pursuit, to see it as an opportunity to intentionally slow, still, and steady our life-in-motion, trusting that there is purpose in what it has to teach us. As our visual display team took that definition and considered how it could be visually represented in the Market, the garden immediately came to mind as a fitting motif.

In the words of our Visual Display Director, Hilary Oswald, “If anything has taught me patience, it’s gardening. If you don’t get it right one season, you have to wait a whole year to try it again and attempt to get it right.”

Patience and the garden have much in common. Both require time. Neither are ever in a hurry. As such, inside the Market you’ll see varieties of slow-climbing plants, carefully hand-carved details, and a combination of terracotta and limestone structures.

The Vision

Drawing from that inspiration, the team sketched out four main installations: a terracotta wall with live floral lettering, a floating Nasturtium display, a limestone arch, and carved riser boxes.

Here’s a look at how they imagined a few of them coming to life inside the Market:

The Final Displays

After months of planning and production, our team spent a weekend in the Market installing the displays they created. Take a look at the final results:

Beauty in the Waiting Wall

Immediately when entering the Market, you’ll see a terracotta wall to the left with the words, seek beauty in the waiting, cut out of it—a gentle reminder that there is good to glean in every season.

The display team created the wall’s faux terracotta finish by mixing joint compound and dye. After making multiple prototypes to ensure the color looked as realistic as possible, they applied the finish to a wood wall. Breaking through the negative space of each cut-out letter are vibrant nasturtium leaves and flowers.

Terracotta Table

Continue walking and you’ll see the same terracotta treatment on a large round pedestal table with a floating arch of nasturtium. Our team chose climbing nasturtium—a vine-like plant with bold nearly-round leaves and vibrant flowers—for this season’s displays because of how different they look from any other plant we’ve previously featured.

“Nasturtium was one of the only plants I successfully sowed from seed last year,” Hilary shared about her own garden at home. “I only chose them because they had big seeds I could plant with my daughter—what a lovely surprise when they were easy to tend and produced beautiful flowers! They certainly taught both of us that seeds are worth the wait.”

To emulate the real plant, our team formed the nasturtium leaves from paper of various shapes, sizes, and colors. The colors of each leaf range from a light to deep green, visually telling the story of growth and the patience it requires. The process was extensive, requiring latex paint, watercolor, and (for the first time in our studio) a small printing press to achieve the delicate veining found on each leaf.

After they were water-colored and painted, each leaf was printed using hand-carved linoleum blocks. To add dimension, our display team folded and glued them, then attached each leaf to paper vines.

Limestone Arch

Behind the terracotta table is a limestone arch that was repurposed from an arch we built in 2019. After sanding and stripping the original structure, it was refinished with concrete, then painted, sprayed, and sponged to produce a textured limestone appearance.

Hand-etched details further add a layer of story by representing time and careful attention to detail, while climbing nasturtium inside the arch adds an organic element.

In the kitchen area, our team built risers with the same limestone and terracotta finishes to highlight our kitchen collection. Hand-etched molding along the top mimics that of the limestone arch. A whimsical display of climbing nasturtium weaves throughout the risers, inviting you into a bright, blooming kitchen.

Spring in Full Bloom

And those are just a few of this season’s highlights around the Market. Take a look at some of the other ways spring is blooming throughout the store:

Product featured: Real Touch Rose Bundle, Blue and White Distressed Vase, Magnolia Ceramic Planter, Spring Blooms Bouquet