WHAT’s next for tessa pinner?

I’m changing careers. That's the short answer. But since this came as a surprise to many, I want to offer some backstory.

I've been running a luxury wedding cake studio for the last six years. The idea for the cake business hatched over consolation cocktails seven years ago - the same evening I was unceremoniously let go over a text message by my current boss, (who'd been paying me $10 an hour part-time to wear about 7 hats), under the thinly veiled excuse that she couldn't afford me. It was unpleasant and not altogether fair, but at the same time, I'm grateful for the push. Like so many new endeavors, the cake idea started as a 'What if?" question from a place of moderate desperation. I wanted a creative business that I would control, and I figured that because of my background in sculpture, I could probably manage to make some exceptional cakes. Within a year I booked my first clients.

Maybe this isn't the romantic beginning that you expected. It's a lot more fun to imagine that every creative or business endeavor is begun from a place of passionate love. I've gotten that a lot over the years, and the misconception makes it harder to understand why ever, if cakes are my ultimate passion, would I be switching careers? It's just not that simple. I've always considered myself first an artist and only secondarily a cake designer and business owner. I am SO grateful that I found my way into making cake. It was a perfect relationship for the season of Iife in my twenties, and it taught me a huge amount about bravery and tenacity, and what it takes to run a creative yet client-serving business. But it was not something I ever thought I'd stay with forever, a bit like a first home. I loved my first home deeply, and yet when it was time to move on, I never looked back. 

I didn't always understand the "passion people." But all of that changed in 2015, when a love of plants that had been lying dormant began to slowly wake. I spent hours in local garden centers, captivated. I began dreaming of how I wanted the yard and garden at our new (old) home to take shape. It was an almost forgotten link back to my childhood, when I would draw out impossible designs for plans on my parents property that didn't have an ice cube's chance in hell of getting implemented. In 2015, I also experienced a traumatic miscarriage, and I took refuge in the comfort of things alive and growing. I never expected for a moment that this new interest would take up more and more of my attention. But over the next years, the seed continued to grow: I enrolled in a year-long Master Gardening certification class, spent a year working part-time at a nursery, and in 2018 ultimately circled back to another big "What if?" question. What IF I was up to the challenge of starting at the beginning again? What IF I could do anything I wanted? Well, if the first answer was yes, I was clear on the second answer too: I wanted to design gardens and also share the beauty I'd grown to love with as many people as I could, and I wanted to write. 

Here's the kicker: by now I'd built a cake studio doing work I was truly proud of. I had a good reputation in the wedding industry and was able to work with wonderful clients. It was just getting comfortable. And yet at the same time as the machinery of my fine-tuned processes hummed along beautifully, my heart was moving on. In 2018, after a lot of angst and some therapy (don’t knock it until you’ve tried it!) I realized I had to move on. Staying put was not an option. I had clarity on what and why, just not on how. So I asked for advice: if becoming a garden designer is my goal, how do I get there? The answer became clear: I had the art training, but I needed more grounding in horticulture - the actual science and craft of growing and understanding plants. Three weeks later, I was enrolled in a horticulture degree, beginning January 2019. My current plan is to join a landscape architecture firm as a planting designer once I finish. As I write this, I’m more than halfway through the program. All of last year, I attended school full-time while keeping a normal wedding schedule. It was so intense that I decided to make the spring 2020 season my last. With the rise of Covid-19, this spring has certainly looked different than I expected! I’m taking the time that would have been devoted to events to dream about the future of Tessa Pinner and this online space. I plan to make it a place to explore inspiration and design ideas. I’m also excited to share what I’m learning and what’s going on in my own garden. Thank you for following along and for your support in this new chapter!