Babylon Floral

Arthur Williams AIFD EMC CFD CPF is known for his floral headdresses and the use of natural tension in his work. With a background in gardening, sculpture, and photography, he entered the floral industry in 1996, and opened his own business, Babylon Floral Design, Inc., in 2004. One of the first seven people in Colorado to become a Certified Professional Florist, he is also a Certified Floral Designer at the national level. Arthur was inducted into the American Institute of Floral Designers in 2015 and just completed EMC this past October in Belgium. Active with the Floral Association of the Rockies and Ikebana International, Chapter 66, Arthur won the 2010 and 2015 Rocky Mountain Cup, making him Colorado Florist of the Year. The Fashion Group International of Denver gave him top honors in the Floral/Fragrance category of their Rising Star competition in 2013. Arthur has been featured in the 2012|13 and 2014|15 2016/17 editions of International Floral Art, made the Spring 2013 cover of the French floral art magazine Nacre and is featured in the winter 2016 edition, has been in many Colorado publications, and was profiled in the book 50-Mile Bouquet. The Human Flower Project requested his work for its presentation at the Denver Botanic Gardens in 2011, where he transformed live models into human flowers. In 2012, downtown Vancouver was home to the NEOflora pop-up boutique, where Arthur joined Hitomi Gilliam AIFD and other floral artists to create a floral art space for one week -- a studio during the day, and a runway at night. Arthur was featured by the Denver Art Museum through it's Creative in Residence program in 2015 where he had a month-long rotating gallery installation program complete with pop up workshop, interactive performance art, and tag along with public tours. Every piece is a collaboration between Arthur and the materials. An organic medium demands an organic process, and each placement dictates the next. Layers, color, texture are all informed by the structure, which comes from the plants themselves. Contrast and harmony blend into each other and unify. The very nature of living materials makes them impermanent. Arthur considers what's yet to come when positioning a bud yet to blossom, or a full bloom that will decline. A floral work of art is alive and transitory, and cannot be possessed; it can only be experienced. There is perfection in the imperfections of nature's sculptures, and bringing them together in simple, striking beauty is Arthur's gift.