On Cultivating Creativity & Abundance (Richard Christiansen)

11.22.2023 - By Elise Loehnen and Audacy Play

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“I’m grateful for seasons. I'm so happy that there can be a winter and there can be a spring and there can be a summer, that it can't always be summer, can't always be bright and happy. And, you know, my book is a bit about that. In winter, the stone fruit loses its leaves and it falls down and it saves its energy for spring. It's okay to sleep. I feel like when life served me a winter and I dropped my leaves for a bit, I came back stronger in spring. I'm just grateful for that idea of that constant change, not just in the world, but in ourselves, and how exciting that has been. And that's given me a whole new fresh perspective. I keep saying a lot, I want to ripen like a peach. I'm okay for my skin to get wrinkled and my flesh to get soft. I really just want to get really sweet and juicy on the inside and and enjoy that process.”

I met Richard Christiansen more than a decade ago, though we didn’t become very close friends until very recently, when strange fates brought us together. We have spent the past three-and-half years birthing new versions of ourselves: We kept each other as close company as I wrote my book and launched this podcast, while Richard left the world of advertising to launch a beautiful brand called Flamingo Estate. You’ve likely seen Flamingo Estate in magazines or on Instagram—it’s Richard’s home, and garden, and also the inspiration point for a range of products like, oh I don’t know, honey made from the bees in Lebron James’ backyard, to Terrazzo bars of soap, to the best olive oil I’ve ever tasted. I’ve never met anyone like Richard, to be honest, who has both a fantastical imagination and incredible design aesthetic with his feet firmly planted in the soil. Richard grew up on a farm in Australia—from a whole family of farmers—and being in the garden is his first home. He has a deep and unabiding reverence for the natural world—Jane Goodall is one of his close friends, after all—which is part of the reason why its the foundation of his brand. He calls nature the last great luxury house, and he sees no reason why a gorgeous tomato shouldn’t get the same photographic consideration as a handbag. We had a wide-ranging conversation about creativity, abundance, pleasure, and fantasy for this special friendsgiving episode.