Student calls on all senses when creating works of beauty

Chu Scott holds a fern close to eyes the color of a smoky sky, rips off a shoot and delicately slides it into a water-soaked sponge.

So begins what Chu would later call  “finally, my masterpiece.” Chu, who has a quiet, thoughtful presence that belies his 13 years, may not have been kidding.

Chu is one of about a dozen students at the Colorado School for the Deaf and the Blind who meet once a week to learn the art of floral arranging from florist Denise White.

White, owner of the Petals and Blooms flower concession at the U.S. Air Force Academy, has been teaching the class for four years, alternating every six weeks between kids with vision and hearing disabilities.
 She said visually disabled students seem to enjoy the class most, and many create arrangements rivaling anything found in a florist shop.

“You could put a price tag on some of these — easy,” she said last week before passing out the basic ingredients of a fall basket: ferns, gourds, carnations and various hues of cushion poms.

But Chu, she said, has a special touch, a gift.

“Chu blows everybody out of the water,” she said.

She remembers when she introduced ikebana to the kids — the Japanese art of minimalist flower arranging. Chu place a rippled flagstone in the middle of his pot and placed prickly shoots in front of it. Behind the rock, he carefully arranged beautiful flowers.“He told me it represents his life before and after he was adopted,” White said.

A Longmont family adopted Chu at age 6 from a Chinese orphanage. He seemed reticent — or too absorbed with his craft — to talk about it, but it must have been a lonely beginning to life.

Chu suffers from albinism, a condition that can cause blindness. Chu said he can see colors and shapes, particularly if he holds objects close. The condition also created a striking, handsome young man — a shock of long, white-blond hair frames a face with flat planes and almond-shaped eyes that bear witness to the country of his birth.

He’s all Colorado kid now. Chu said he loves school, and he plans to go to college. He’s learning to ski through a program at school, and he loves the sensation of sliding on snow. He wore his green ski parka throughout class.

Chu said working with flowers allows him to express himself in an unusual way: “It’s a different way of describing yourself,” he said. “You can let your feelings come out in an arrangement without speaking. I learned how to express myself in ways I never thought possible.”

Chu said he uses all his senses when he creates his arrangements. Sometimes he’ll work with shapes, even sticking in bare stems at random places.

“It gives it more structure, more base. It levels it out.”

Sometimes, he’ll work with smell.

“If a flower has a rich smell, I’ll put it on the outside. If someone smells it, they get a rich smell first.”
His trademark, the thing that comes last, sets him apart from other kids in his class.

When he’s done with a floral arrangement, Chu sweeps up the debris — the leaves, the broken flower buds, the stems — and sprinkles them over his creation.

“In nature, you find leaves blown onto flowers by the wind,” he said, bending over and peering closely at his work. “It looks more natural.

White said when Chu first dribbled a little disorder onto one of his creations, she asked him why. The seventh-grader’s answer made a profound impact on her:

“He told me, ‘Nothing in nature is perfect.’ ”