Last Updated on April 8, 2023, 4:03 PM | Published: April 8, 2023
Sometimes the most beautiful art can be the most fleeting.
Paintings, songs, and films can endure for decades or even centuries, but the best floral artists know that it can be just as effective to experience something beautiful for just a few short days, knowing that it’s limited lifespan is part of its power.
And that’s exactly the thinking behind Art in Bloom, Oklahoma City Museum of Art’s annual celebration of the state’s remarkable floral artists, inviting visitors and patrons to see brand new, blossoming works of art throughout the museum for just one weekend.
2023’s installment of the event runs from April 14th through April 16th, and is set to feature some new, unique elements, as well as more flower-based art than ever before.
Plucked from All Over
For this year’s edition of Art in Bloom – the fourth iteration of the event – OKCMOA’s Development Events Manager, Sara Miller, put together a roster of floral artists from all over Oklahoma, and from all across the spectrum of floral design work.
“This year, we have eleven Oklahoma-based floral designers, and they kind of range from being floral shops to wedding coordinators to people that just really enjoy doing floral design,” Miller said. “So it’s kind of a range of experience as well as talent, which I absolutely love.”
As with previous years, the floral sculptures will be presented inside the museum galleries alongside the more traditional artworks, but this year, they’ll be including some new spaces for the first time ever that Miller says will set the stage for some especially creative new displays.
“We’re going to have nine of the sculptures in the galleries in the museum, but then we’re going to have two of them in more public spaces as well,” she explained. “One will be in our theater lobby, and one will actually be in our store.”
Growing Inspiration
A defining theme from Art in Bloom’s previous years is encouraging the floral designers to create flowering interpretations of artworks or artistic motifs from the galleries in which their sculptures are built and displayed.
With the newly included museum spaces providing new settings for the event, and with the powerful recent exhibitions on display in the galleries, there’s no shortage of compelling inspiration for the floral artists.
“New Leaf Florist is going to have their sculpture in our museum store, and they’ll be taking inspiration from artist Nicole Moan’s ceramic corsets, which we sell in the store,” Miller said.
“And Forever Borrowed, who are new to the event this year, will be doing a piece based off of our current special exhibition, ‘William H. Johnson Picturing Justice.’ I’m really excited to see what they come up with for that.”
Witness the Work
The floral artists will begin constructing their pieces in the galleries on the evening of Thursday, April 13th.
As OKCMOA’s weekly Art After 5 event – inviting visitors to enjoy the museum on Thursday evenings – is currently in full swing, you might think it would interfere with the set-up for Art in Bloom.
Instead, museum organizers have decided to make it a part of the exhibition. Thursday evening, for the first time, crowds will be encouraged to watch the floral designers at work building and developing their sculptures, a rare glimpse into the delicate and meticulous art of floral design.
“That’s going to be a really unique experience,” Miller said. “It’s going to be so neat to have people in the galleries while the designers are building these incredible structures.”
Temporary Beauty
Though the vibrant colors and fresh, seasonal scents that the flowers offer may be the most obvious artistic appeal to many viewers, much of what makes Art in Bloom unique as an exhibition is knowing that it’s a particularly temporary and time-sensitive experience.
“I think what makes Art in Bloom so special is that it’s only for one weekend, for these three days, that you get to see this art,” said Miller. “And this year, we are requiring at least 90% real flowers to be used, so even by Sunday, they won’t look the same as they did on Thursday when they were installed.”
That inherent, fleeting timetable for the event has proven to be a strong motivation for museum patrons. The 2022 installment of Art in Bloom brought in over 3000 visitors in just the one weekend.
But for the floral artists themselves, there’s another important element that Miller says makes this annual showcase of their art form so special.
“A thing I love about Art in Bloom is that most of the time, wedding coordinators and florists are making arrangements based on their clients’ desires,” she said. “But here, they get to look at a gallery and choose an artwork, and then they get to just let their creativity really flow and create their own art through flowers.”
For tickets, times, and more information about Art in Bloom weekend events, including the Friday night Bubbles & Blooms cocktail party on the museum’s roof terrace, visit okcmoa.com.
Brett Fieldcamp has been covering arts, entertainment, news, housing, and culture in Oklahoma for nearly 15 years, writing for several local and state publications. He’s also a musician and songwriter and holds a certification as Specialist of Spirits from The Society of Wine Educators.
