MEET THE MAKER - VoxFlora's Eve Sawa
February 2026
Keen observers of the Thor’s Hammer showroom, our website, or visitors to our 2025 Floriade market stall may have noticed a recent addition to our dry vases. Beautifully considered dried floral arrangements that feel right at home alongside recycled timber.
These arrangements are the work of local Canberra florist VoxFlora. We first connected with VoxFlora while preparing for Floriade, we were looking for a way to bring softness, movement and colour to our market stall. What Eve created went well beyond decoration. Thoughtful compositions of dried native flowers complemented and elevated our dry vases and timber pieces without overpowering them.
For this edition of our Meet the Maker series, we sat down with VoxFlora founder Eve Sawa to talk about her journey from visual artist to florist, the deeply personal story behind VoxFlora, and how her painter’s eye shapes the way she works with botanical materials.
Eve working on - The Melt series and Snowy River, more rocks than water - oil and beeswax on canvas 210 x 90 cm
You have a BA in Visual Art. What was your art background and how has it shaped the way you approach botanical design today?
Yes, I graduated with honors from ANU School of Art majoring in painting and my thesis focused on my personal connection to Australia’s alpine region and the ecological issues which threaten its sustainability. The paintings I made from the area are predominantly large scale textural works in oil and beeswax with imagery of rocks, water, melting snow and emerging plant material which is conveyed using a sgraffito (scratched into) technique.
Upon graduating I was a recipient of the ANU Centre for Environmental and Resource Studies Award and my works titled ‘Snowy River, more rocks than water’ hang in the Forestry Building at the ANU Fenner School for Environment and Society.
Being a visual artist has most certainly shaped my approach to botanical design in that I always consider myself an artist and a painter. Why? Because it’s become my instinctive way of seeing, always looking at the formal elements of whatever it is that I’m making. By this I mean things like form, texture, colour, shape and space. I even feel at times that my botanical work can appear quite ‘landscapey’ with a kind of fore, mid and background.
Sometimes it’s also about a particular mood or emotion I might get from certain botanical materials or flowers. I kind of like to convey that somehow too if the mood strikes me and that stems from the connection I feel with the Northern European Romantic landscape painters like Caspar David Friedrich.
Was there a particular moment or project that set you on the path toward creating VoxFlora?
VoxFlora means voice of the flower in Latin.
It was 2018 and I started to experience some really unusual physical symptoms. My eyes felt gritty and began to involuntarily blink and forcefully shut when I spoke to someone. I’d pick up a book but was unable to read because I couldn’t track the page properly. These symptoms progressed to include my face and voice, to the extent where I couldn’t chew, constantly bit myself when eating and spoke with a strained, almost choking sounding voice.
Work in progress as recipient of the CIT graduation award for Artist in Residence at Cuppacumbalong Homestead.
Thankfully I was quickly diagnosed. It turned out that I have a rare neurological movement disorder called dystonia, one that’s best described as being functional and a software issue rather than a hardware problem with the brain. And I say ‘thankfully’ because sadly some people spend years visiting numerous medical practitioners before receiving an accurate diagnosis for this condition.
So VoxFlora was born because this disorder sent me into a spiral of reclusiveness and depression. I didn’t want to go out, let alone eat in public, I didn’t want to speak to people. I wasn’t myself anymore and I spent a couple of years like this.
Lucky for me I have a smart and pushy daughter who was really worried about me but also knows what’s good for her mother...mostly ; ) She lovingly sent me along to an information evening at the Canberra Institute of Technology for Cert IV in Floristry. She knew I needed something new to focus on, something happy, colourful and freely creative and I came home with the exciting news that I had signed up!
I often say that I was saved by flowers and there’s a truth in that. Floristry re-connected me with others, brought joy and good vibes when I needed them most and became my creative voice as I struggled with my own. Painting was too serious for me at the time and it was flowers that gently pushed me back into life.
For those new to your work, how would you describe the signature style of VoxFlora?
In a nutshell I like to think of the signature VoxFlora style as being uncontrived and organic in nature yet highly considered with colour and texture plus a bit on the wild side.
Designs are never cut-and-paste or formulaic but a one off often spontaneous creation inspired by the materials and what feels right in the moment. I find that the quicker a botanical piece comes together the better it looks. I love it when an arrangement develops like scooping paint from a palette and that works the same for me with painting because it ends up looking fresh and contains immediacy and movement.
You’ve created bouquets for our dry vases. What interested you about that collaboration and how did you approach designing for timber-made pieces?
As a florist and artist I’m constantly drawn to vessels for botanics and have always had an affinity for objects made from timber or other natural materials. When I first saw the dry vase on your Instagram page I was excited and immediately drawn to the beautiful materiality and economy of design. The fact that they are made from offcuts of already salvaged timber also resonated with me, being a florist who strives to implement sustainable practices within the course of my work and business.
I felt that Thor’s Hammer and VoxFlora could be a good fit in terms of aesthetic and sustainability and I couldn’t wait to experiment with the vases using different materials. I was especially keen to use native Australian species and foraged grasses.
The one thing that I would say determines what goes into the final design is always the timber itself. I might pop something in and immediately know if it's going to work with the timber or not. That’s why if I’m creating for a Thor’s Hammer customer I’ll always need to have a photo of the vase they’ve purchased.
The rectangular box shape can also be a challenge to work with as materials naturally want to fall away from the centre toward the corners. This is where strategic stem placement comes into play, creating support and structure. Unless of course it’s an en masse bunch of billy buttons or paper daisies, which look absolutely stunning in the vases.
What plant or flower do you return to again and again, no matter the season?
Banksia, banksia and more banksia of any kind that I can get my hot little hands on! These ancient beauties, fresh or dried, flower, pod or leaf. I’m in love with them all!
Another year round favourite is the native paper daisy. There are so many beautiful varieties, some with big crisp papery heads and then there’s the delicate little darlings. Having these on hand both fresh and dried makes them so versatile.
I’ve also been growing some of my own flowers, having been an avid gardener since childhood and forever delighting in a piece of earth to plant something in. We’ve just built a lovely new cutting garden at home and the plan is to grow lots of paper daisies. I find that they do really well here in Canberra and require minimal water. And they last forever...well almost!
A beautiful bouquet from VoxFlora
Floral arrangement featuring native plant species.
What does a perfect foraging day look like to you?
I had one of those perfect foraging days recently when my husband and I set out to go paper daisy picking on our wedding anniversary. After a delicious La raclette crepe and coffee in Braidwood we visited a property out of town and returned home with armfuls of flowers. They were all tied into bunches after we got back and hung up to dry.
Another thing that I can get quite obsessed with is foraging for fresh and dried grasses. I just love the variety of textures and I like to use them in singular groupings in an arrangement.
Foraging for paper daisies.
VoxFlora’s arrangements are a natural extension of Eve’s artistic practice. They are intuitive, textural and deeply connected to place. Her approach to floristry reflects much of what we value at Thor’s Hammer. Working responsively with materials, respecting their history, and letting form and texture lead the design.
You can see VoxFlora’s dried floral arrangements in our showroom, styled in our dry vases from the Thinking Small range, each made from recycled timber offcuts. To explore more of Eve’s work, follow VoxFlora on Instagram or visit her stall at the Haig Park Village Markets on Sundays. VoxFlora also creates bespoke arrangements for small weddings and events, corporate spaces and memorial flowers.
Visit the Thor’s Hammer showroom to see how timber and botanicals come together.
