Why I Built the Art in Bloom DC Website

August 5, 2026

One of the questions I've been asked over the years is why I put so much time into building the Art in Bloom DC website.

The answer is simple: I wanted the flowers to outlive the exhibition.

When I began developing Art in Bloom DC in 2020, I spent countless hours researching Art in Bloom exhibitions across the United States. I was inspired by the incredible work being done in cities around the country, but I also noticed something that surprised me. While many organizations promoted their exhibitions, I couldn't find one that was intentionally preserving and celebrating the floral artwork itself long after the show had ended.

That felt like a missed opportunity.

Flowers are one of the most ephemeral art forms we have. Designers spend hours—sometimes days—creating pieces that may only exist for a weekend before they disappear forever. Yet the creativity, craftsmanship, and imagination behind those works deserve a life beyond a few days in a gallery.

From the very beginning, I wanted Art in Bloom DC to be different.

The exhibition would last for a weekend, but the artists' work would have a permanent home.

In 2020, I purchased the Art in Bloom DC domain through Squarespace and personally designed and built the organization's first website. I also created and managed its Instagram account. My goal was never simply to advertise the event. I wanted to create a lasting archive where every participating florist could continue to share and celebrate their work years after the flowers themselves had faded.

The website became, in many ways, an extension of the exhibition itself.

Every florist who participated contributed something unique. I believed they deserved more than a fleeting moment of recognition. They deserved an archive that honored their creativity and preserved the history we were building together.

From 2020 through 2024, I personally built, updated, photographed, and maintained the website while simultaneously organizing the exhibition and running my own floral business.

By 2024, my professional responsibilities had grown in several directions, and I realized I needed help maintaining the site. I hired Amine Custis to take over its management. She felt it would be best to create a new website based on the original one rather than continue updating the existing site, and the project evolved from there.

As the years passed, the administrative ownership of the website and domain became less clear than I had intended. What has never changed, however, is my connection to the original vision. I created the first Art in Bloom DC website because I believed our artists deserved a permanent place where their work could continue to inspire people long after each exhibition closed. I have continued to financially support the website because I still believe in that mission.

Looking back, I'm proud that one of the earliest decisions I made was to think beyond opening weekend.

The flowers were always meant to be temporary.

The record of the artists' work was not.

If Art in Bloom DC has accomplished anything lasting, I hope it is that hundreds of floral designs—and the talented people who created them—have a home where they can continue to be discovered, appreciated, and remembered.