Chicago florist John Caleb Pendleton arranges flowers into Black stories

The florist’s work typically features an asymmetrical style that highlights depth and texture.

Chicago florist John Caleb Pendleton arranges flowers into Black stories

The florist’s work typically features an asymmetrical style that highlights depth and texture.

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Chicago florist John Caleb Pendleton wanders through a West Side flower market selecting Scabiosa stems, acorns, camellia branches, Grevillea greenery and blue thistle that he says will be used to create an arrangement for legendary visual artist Rick Lowe. Pendleton’s choices pay homage to Lowe’s southern roots and the colors often used in his works.

Pendleton has also created his distinct designs during events for some of the biggest brands in America.

And his work goes beyond bouquets: Last year he reimagined the historic “Whipped Peter” photograph – an image of a Black Union soldier with keloid scars on his back. Pendleton’s multimedia arrangement replaced the keloids with blooms, keeping the red and pink to honor the bloodshed “Whipped Peter” endured.

The reimagining of the historical 'Whipped Peter' photograph is one of the ways John Caleb Pendleton uses florals to tell Black stories.
The reimagining of the historical ‘Whipped Peter’ photograph is one of the ways John Caleb Pendleton uses florals to tell Black stories. Courtesy of John Celeb Pendleton

“It’s a beautiful way to tell a sad story,” Pendleton said. “I want people who engage with me and my work to walk away learning more about Black stories. I want Black people to walk away having engaged with a Black story they’ve probably heard before in a way that they haven’t seen before.”

Pendleton, a South Sider with a southern charm and friendly disposition, is relatively new to the professional florist industry. As recently as 2019, Pendleton was a youth program coordinator who made backyard floral arrangements for his wife during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The self-taught floral designer started getting attention for his work — which typically features an asymmetrical style that highlights depth and texture — after he shared his arrangements on social media. Pendleton, who tells stories of Black joy and history through his designs, soon found a community of people looking to purchase his work.

“My storytelling is very emotional,” Pendleton said. “You look at [my designs] and you just feel something from it. It’s very visceral.”

Pendleton said orders became so frequent that he quit his outreach job and started his own business, Planks & Pistils.

“My dad is a woodworker and I always grew up appreciating that craft, so ‘Planks’ is a nod to him — and ‘Pistil’ is the female organ of a flower,” Pendleton said. “My mother always had flowers around the house, so that is a nod to her.”

John Caleb Pendleton poses with his work at his studios at Mana Contemporary in Pilsen.
John Caleb Pendleton poses with his work at his studios at Mana Contemporary in Pilsen. Samantha Callender / WBEZ

At his studio inside Mana Contemporary in the Pilsen neighborhood, Pendleton finds ways to use his arrangements to tell the stories while staying true to his artistic vision and style.

“I love taking different textures and mixing them and pushing the limits,” Pendleton said. “My arrangements are an experience and I create movement that has the eye always taking in something new — new color, new texture, and shifts in depth.”

Pendleton said he uses a variety of stems to educate people on their value and give Black people exposure to more rare and luxurious flowers.

“I don’t use typical flowers in my arrangements so my prices aren’t typical. I’m getting better at being firm on my pricing, but also using that as an education tool — breaking down the industry, the time it takes to create these pieces, and honoring my labor and how that all goes into the value of my arrangements,” Pendleton said. “More often than not it pays off and I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how people, my people, have been supporting. The power of storytelling to connect.”

Before entering the industry, Pendleton had been inspired by other Black florists like Maurice Harris, the owner of Bloom and Plume in L.A. Pendleton said he now considers Harris a friend and mentor whose insight has been invaluable to him as one of the few Black male florists in the industry.

“When you think of what a ‘florist’ is, the picture that probably comes to mind is a white woman. Being a Black man in this space isn’t something you usually see for a lot of reasons,” Pendleton said. “Black men aren’t encouraged to tap into their creative side, and if there are Black and Brown people ‘in the industry’ they’re laborers in the fields harvesting these plants, and for a long time flowers weren’t really something Black people invested in.”

One example of how this stereotype plays out in real life is at the West Side wholesale market where Pendleton buys his flowers. Only members can shop the store’s rare stems, and Pendleton said he sometimes gets mistaken for an employee. While his warm nature makes such an assumption easy, Pendleton said it’s also because it’s rare for a Black man to be a florist with a wholesale license.

“I’m not offended when I get mistaken for an employee,” Pendleton said. “It’s just a reminder how there isn’t much representation of people like me in the floral industry.”

“You create from your heart and it will attract people who don’t want to change you but people who are genuinely intrigued by what you do. For me that’s using plants as a storytelling medium.”

Samantha Callender is a digital reporting fellow for WBEZ. Follow her across socials @OnYourCallender.