Talent Plus Celebrates the Seasonal FlowerFall Installation in Its Atrium
Talent Plus (talentplus.com) colleague and First Impressions Lead Michael Trutna has designed “FlowerFall,” an installation currently gracing Talent Plus’ 40-foot-high atrium. Ideated and created by Trutna, this involved over 250 hours designing and hand building each paper flower with extreme attention to detail and more than 25 hours in its assembly. His spring-inspired art has added new life and beauty to the building’s gallery-like entrance space.
“I always felt our atrium would be a great space for large-scale art works on a continuing basis. We just started to conceptualize a connection with artists whose work would be a good match for the space and those efforts were placed on hold due to COVID-19. While we had quieter time in the office with an optional return to the corporate office in June 2020, I could attempt a dry run for an atrium installation,” says Trutna. “I had been thinking about something to do in the spring and found a few artists who have done interesting things with cut flowers. One in particular—Rebecca Louise Law—does amazing large-scale installations working only with flowers and thin copper wire. It sent me in a direction of working not with cut flowers, but paper flowers. I wanted to highlight flowers native to the areas found in Nebraska: grasslands, sandhills and wooded areas surrounding the Missouri river valley. I researched native and nonnative varieties to find an eclectic combination of flowers.”
All the flowers are Trutna’s own patterns—an interpretation of the blooms. “I wanted detail in each flower, but not literal realism, since cardstock used for most of the blooms wouldn’t allow realism that can be achieved by using crepe paper.” The first flowers were cut entirely by hand—around two hundred blooms—and then Trutna used a CriCut machine. Each flower is assembled and fashioned from stacking two or three cut pieces on top of each other to achieve a layered effect—none of the petal sets are from a single piece.
Trutna likes the idea of having something in the Talent Plus atrium people can experience. “Something that draws people to the space to gather and linger, rather than being an area that’s merely passed through. I hope to draw more people to the atrium, through return-to-the-office events or morning or afternoon coffee breaks, to encourage more socializing in the space.”
In thinking about the challenge the space offers, Trutna adds, “It’s important to have that special spark of interest which draws you to that new adventure, that new activity, that new task, that new hobby. When that spark is present, though the task or activity might feel somewhat daunting, it’s such a great energy to draw from. That spark can make you challenge yourself to take that step, that leap and try something new. Once I conceptualize a larger project into a series of tasks or action items, nothing overwhelms me—neither the planned items nor the unexpected elements.”
Talent Plus, located off of 70th and Pioneers Blvd, is the premier human capital and talent management consulting partner. As experts at each critical inflection across the talent lifecycle, their solutions scientifically assess, select, onboard, develop, coach, engage, and retail the right people with the right talents to grow and gain a profound and sustained competitive advantage over their industry peers.
