The room is alit with color. The unique fragrances of assorted flowers float around the big, bright rooms. There are people talking and music playing.
The North Carolina Museum of Art (NCMA) is hosting its annual Art in Bloom exhibit, a fundraising event for the museum in which artists come to interpret works of art as floral designs.
“All the pieces are chosen by the curators to be used for Art in Bloom, and they are all iconic pieces of the museum,” said Caroline Lundby, who is an intern at NCMA.
Typically Art in Bloom lasts one week, but this year due to COVID-19 and issues with capacity, it will be open Thursday through Sunday for two weeks. In addition to a change in timeline, the museum has also adapted its traffic flow. In previous years people could walk around exhibits freely, but this year there are markers on the floor dictating the direction of movement through the museum.
“There’s a lot of thought going into the placement of the floral works in a way that hasn’t really happened before,” Lundby said.
There will be roughly 50 artists coming to the museum for this exhibit. Wholesale flowers must be used in the artists’ installations, because flowers from gardens run the risk of tracking in bugs or viruses into the museum. Also, the stamen of the flowers, which hold pollen, must be removed.
“Every single morning the designers have to come and refresh the pieces. If there are dead flowers, they take them out and replace them,” Lundby said.
If an artist doesn’t show up in the morning to refresh, their piece is removed from the museum. Fortunately, that doesn’t happen often due to the popularity of the exhibit.
“In the floral community, a lot of people do these types of shows, because they often don’t really have time to make the floral designs they want to do,” Lundby said. “The word spreads pretty quickly that NCMA is doing Art in Bloom, because the floral designers get to have full creative control.”
Artists can also receive cash prizes for their work. The director of the museum chooses the first place winner, but museum guests can also vote on their favorite floral work. This year, the first place prize is $1,000.
Art in Bloom runs June 3-13. Because this is a fundraising event, tickets for the exhibit are available online for $18 for museum members and $20 for non-member. However, there are also virtual Art in Bloom events that are free which can be found at ncartmuseum.org.
Photo by Owen Soccorso/The ECHO
