Maurice Harris of Bloom & Plume

· 02/13/2013

Maurice Harris of Bloom & Plume

What fuels Maurice Harris’s work? The idea that his creations for Bloom & Plume are ephemeral, the belief that flowers are the ultimate luxury, and his daily green smoothies.

Maurice sort of fell into working with flowers. While working in display production for a fashion designer, he found himself problem solving before a business meeting when the floral centerpiece for the table arrived and was deemed unacceptable. He took it apart, put it back together in a much more appealing way, and from then on was considered the in-house florist.

It began with people in the office sending him requests internally—he worked on arrangements for colleagues’ weddings, for special meetings and the office as a whole. These requests gave him a creative outlet, an escape from his otherwise technical job.

It’s been two years since he left that technical job and is now fulfilling numerous orders for his business, Bloom & Plume, each day. He creates unique arrangements for everything from weddings to homes and window displays for designer Jenni Kayne.

Maurice is clearly passionate about his work—he dedicates hours of his time to pick up flowers from the Flower Market (at the moment, his flower of choice is the Anemone), works from his dining room to create the perfect mix of delicate and atypical items, and delivers to events where they’ll be used for just a few hours.

Clients come to Maurice because they love his style and point of view. He’s an interesting and innovative artist, to say the least. For example, his living room is painted a yellowish green, and the walls are lined with landscape paintings with the same color scheme (most featuring wooded lake scenes). He had been working to have an entirely monochromatic room, but abandoned that pursuit when he adopted the belief that if you love something, specifically a piece of furniture, you should just go with it. He ended up with a red and white patterned rug and velvet brocade sofa that feels like a more fashionable version of your grandmother’s.

The process of decorating his living room seems to be just like the process of his work and the pieces he creates. “There’s love and romance put into them,” he told us, “and a story is created.”