“I'm a guy who loves flowers–I like bringing flowers, I like designing flowers, I like changing somebody's morning with flowers,” says Lewis Miller, the floral designer and founder of Lewis Miller Design, the multi-event production house with a second studio in West Palm Beach, Florida. Lewis says that at an early age, he learned the power of flowers, and how they can transform the energy of a room. “Growing up, we would have company over to our house after church on Sundays, and my happy place was bringing in flowers from the garden and decorating the table,” he says. “Flowers are a celebration–they are here to make us happy.”
Miller is the creative genius behind the spontaneous, free-form floral installations that spring to life across NYC and on the pages of his new book, Flower Flash. Our new Framebridge x Lewis Miller Design capsule collection captures the fleeting beauty and pure joy of those gorgeous, guerilla-style street installations. Like Framebridge, Miller believes in celebrating everything that makes you happy. His Flower Flashes are designed to spread joy, and our four custom-framed prints are here to extend that joy.
We recently sat down with Miller (and his three dogs!) at his office, where he shared the stories behind the collection’s images and talked about finding inspiration, his all-time favorite blooms, and the magic of a trash bin.
How did your love for flowers begin?
“My grandfather and my mother were both gardeners, so we were always surrounded by plants. The garden was my oasis. I went on to study landscape design and horticulture, but realized that my attention span is rather short: It takes longer for oak trees to grow than to transform a venue for a party that's all over at midnight. That kind of speed really fit my personality, which, fast forward, led to the Flower Flash.”
What exactly is a Flower Flash?
“These are very temporary, larger-than-life floral installations outside in the streets of New York. We've done well over 120 of them–in Tribeca, Soho, Brooklyn, Harlem, the Upper East Side, the Upper West Side, the West Village. Midtown, Chinatown, the Wall Street area. They can be in a trash bin, on a statue, in a construction zone. The installations are not overplanned, and done very early in the morning when it's dark out so that it's not a spectator sport. When we walk away, there are flowers for people to take. By 10 o'clock there's nothing left but like a rose petal on the ground.”
