Daffodils Blossom in Our Future Dreamscapes

MEET THE ARTISTS & LEARN ABOUT THEIR MURALS 

Caitlyn Augustyn (aka Bloomsy)’s Blooming Beyond Your Wildest Dreams

About the Artist: Bloomsy, the Philly flower bomber, is a florist and street artist known for turning the city into a living bouquet with her unexpected floral installations. She uses flowers as her paint, and the city of Philadelphia is her canvas. As the owner of Fistful of Flowers, a small woman-owned business, she creates stunning arrangements for events, weddings, and even pop stars, all while keeping her art accessible to everyone. Her work is an open love letter to Philadelphia—bold, fleeting, and impossible to ignore. This mural is created with support from artists Allie Rainey and Blur.

IG: @fistfulofflowersphilly, @justallie.creative, @blurstreetrart

Artist Statement: Blooming Beyond Your Wildest Dreams is a celebration of community, growth, and the transformative power of art. Drawing inspiration from the vibrant spirit of Philadelphia and its iconic row homes, this mural is an invitation for viewers to pause, reflect, and contribute to a living narrative of hope and renewal. At the heart of the piece is a playful reimagining of urban architecture, where each house becomes a canvas for nature’s exuberance. The left house bursts forth with 3D flowers, a tactile reminder of the beauty that emerges when creativity takes root. The middle house, my own, opens its door and stoop to welcome passersby to “have a minute to be rooted”—a moment to set intentions and dream aloud. Here, a live-action mailbox stands ready, inviting visitors to share their dreams and aspirations, merging personal reflection with collective storytelling. The right house, adorned with moss, ivy, and succulents, symbolizes nature’s persistent reclaiming of space, a gentle nod to the resilience inherent in all of us. I was fortunate to work with magnificent artists, Allie Rainey and Blur, whose collaboration helped bring this vision and mural to life. I loved how our collective energy and creativity merged to make this idea a reality. I have infused elements of street art into this piece, drawing on the raw, spontaneous energy of my own artistic roots. Incorporating a pay phone, stoop, and bus sign—each reimagined with a floral twist—serves as a playful dialogue between the urban landscape and the organic world. These installations not only enhance the visual narrative but also encourage active participation, transforming viewers into contributors who help to animate the mural with their own stories and dreams. Blooming Beyond Your Wildest Dreams is more than just a mural; it is an evolving community artwork that invites everyone to plant a seed of intention for the future. It is my hope that this piece will inspire a sense of wonder, connection, and empowerment, reminding us that even amidst the concrete jungle, beauty and growth can flourish when we come together.

Ethan Carroll (aka Nahcroll Illustration)’s In Budding Company

About the Artist: Ethan Carroll is the multidisciplinary artist behind Nahcroll Illustration. Since graduating from Tyler School of Art at Temple University in 2022, Carroll has taken inspiration from Philadelphia’s environment; his work is a reflection of the unapologetic city he resides in. The foundation of his work rests in the caricatures of conversations, landscapes, and moments that Carroll stumbles upon. The idea of being present translates to Carroll’s craft; all two-dimensional work starts as hand-drawn ink pieces that are later scanned and colored digitally. Carroll’s passion for art inspires the desire to work with any and all mediums. From screen and linocut printing to sculpture, lack of resources or materials doesn’t hinder Carroll’s efforts to produce vivid communities from his unique imagination.

IG: @nahcroll

Artist Statement: Coming up with the composition, I faced some resistance and wasn’t sure how I wanted to go about this piece. This last year has been hard on me personally, and I know it hasn’t been easy for anyone. However, I have found that it is easy to isolate and lose motivation, but when I’m surrounded by like-minded people, I feel so hopeful and inspired. Asking for help from others, getting feedback, and sparking ideas with one another are how we grow and change for the better. In Budding Company is about the beauty and love I’ve experienced in the people and places in this city.

Jaime Kahng Wiesner’s Companions

About the Artist: Jaime Kahng Wiesner is an artist born and raised in Philadelphia. She has a BA in fine arts and American studies from Wesleyan University. She worked as an assistant artist for Mural Arts Philadelphia for several years, painting and installing murals across the city. Currently, Jaime is an independent artist living in West Philly and is primarily creating rug-tufted pieces, but she maintains a love of painting and printmaking. Her work features vivid colors and organic shapes like fruits, veggies, birds, and fish. She particularly enjoys playing with scale in her imagery and has a fondness for rendering small things larger than life.

IG: @art.JKW

Artist Statement: The Flower Show this year is all about looking forward and envisioning a future full of abundance. What gives me hope for that vision is the wealth of knowledge we already have at our disposal. I wanted to make a piece highlighting the specific practice of companion planting as an example of a technique with a long history and many current applications. Companion planting is a technique of growing different kinds of plants together for the mutual benefit of the different plants. You may be familiar with the very famous example of the Three Sisters, a combination of beans, squash, and corn developed and used by indigenous communities across North America and Mesoamerica. The beans absorb nitrogen from the air and convert it into nitrates in the soil, the squash provides ground cover, and the corn stalk makes a pole for the beans to climb. This kind of planting is in opposition to a monoculture, where you might see an entire field of just one crop. In this piece, you’ll see nasturtiums, purple aster, basil, tomatoes, and carrots. Carrots’ long taproots help aerate the soil and combat compaction. Basil deters many common garden pests and also helps intensify the flavor of nightshades like tomatoes. Purple asters attract pollinators, and nasturtiums draw pests like aphids to themselves over the delicate tomatoes, leaving the fruit protected and the pests much easier to deal with on the heartier flowers. All this to say, companion planting makes it possible to set up your garden, be it in a window box, a backyard, or a community, to prioritize diversity, protect our vulnerable members, and cultivate beauty. This rug was made using a hand-held tufting machine, which punches yarn through an open-weave fabric stretched on a frame. The yarn is secured with glue on the back and then sheared to create an even texture across the surface.

Marigold Murals’ Mama Fire, Baby Seed

About the Artists: Marigold Murals is a collaboration between Nila Devaney and Kate Welbes, two artists invested in creating ritual in everyday spaces through community storytelling. Nila and Kate’s deep commitment to restorative justice practices is rooted in their belief that recollection, reconstructing, and retelling our stories through creative expression is an act of resistance. Whether these processes take place in a mural, during a community painting day, or in a facilitated workshop-—there is space made, and it is sacred.

IG: @marigoldmurals

Artist Statement: Mama Fire, Baby Seed displays the inevitability and necessity of destruction within creation, drawing on the renewal of self as a liberatory practice. In this mural, a mother plants a seed inside of herself as she comes home to her body, land, and spirit. The mother holds the legacy of her ancestors inside her, and she continues the renewal of life as she becomes fire. Birthed through the dismantling of their mother’s world, a baby seed emerges from the fire and transforms into the beginning stages of a marigold. Grief waters our dreams to fruition; without it, there is no seed to plant. In this image, we honor the cycle of the deconstruction of worlds bringing us into new ones. The Marigold Child is the creation of a revolution: a liberatory force continuing the freeing of the colonized bodies and lands. Planted in faith, the Marigold Child is one of many seeds of rebirth.