Plant Stylist Hilton Carter’s Serendipitous Flea Market Find
For the designer, the wooden tiger head–turned–plant holder signifies life’s fateful coincidences.
For the designer, the wooden tiger head–turned–plant holder signifies life’s fateful coincidences.
One of my rules for going to flea markets is to know ahead of time what I’m looking for. On a visit to the Pasadena Flea Market back in 2015, I had in mind something with an organic look that I could bring into my home. Initially, I was thinking about a wood side table, but then a large wooden tiger head caught my attention. I instantly knew I was sold.
When I brought it back home to Baltimore and hung it on my wall, however, it seemed to be missing something, so I decided to put an air plant in its mouth. As the plant started to grow, it began to look like a roaring flame. While the tiger head stands out on its own as a work of art, using it asa plant holder has allowed it to take on a new story and become a part of my world as a stylist.
Stylist Hilton Carter turned a wooden tiger head into a vessel for an air plant. Without knowing anything about the item’s origins, he thought it was fate when years later he stumbled upon similar objects while in Mexico for his wedding.
Photo by Jamie Chung
For me, this piece represents the many little treasures that can come into your life, only to reveal their meanings later on. When my wife and I went to Tulum, Mexico, in 2018 to get married, we visited a shop in a small town that was selling similar wooden tiger heads. We concluded that this is probably where the design originated. At that moment, I felt that somehow the piece I had purchased in Pasadena had found its way to me and then helped us find our way to where it may have come from.
Photography: Jamie Chung / @jamiechungstudio
