West Queen Studios and Hidden Door at Art in Bloom 2025 — NC Museum of Art, Raleigh
Every March, the North Carolina Museum of Art turns its West Building over to floral designers from across the state. Art in Bloom is the museum's signature annual fundraiser — five days where botanical artists interpret works from the permanent collection at a scale most florists never work at. Last year's theme was Art in the Park. Tickets sold out. The galleries were packed.
West Queen Studios, based out of Hillsborough, NC, was among the invited designers. Morgan, the studio's founder and lead artist, built the kind of installation that people walked past once, stopped, turned around, and walked back to look at again.
It started with a structural arch of twisted branches rising close to ten feet, anchored at its center by hand-crafted sculptural white leaf panels — detailed, almost architectural. Yellow gloriosa lily crowned the top. Below that, color moved down the piece in layers: teal and soft lavender first, then warmer magenta and fuchsia, deepening into violet and cobalt blue at the base. The ground level was its own world — blue eryngium, green button mums, allium globes, and low-growing moss. A white ceramic rabbit sat at the foot of the piece, easy to miss until you were standing right in front of it.
Six satellite arrangements radiated out across the surrounding floor, each one its own composition. Graduated delphinium spires in pure purple. Orange garden roses against fresh green. Deep pink roses with allium. They framed the main installation without competing with it.
Anita of Hidden Door Floral Studio was there as head designer, working alongside Morgan throughout. The two have collaborated before — Morgan has been a mentor to Anita, and that history shows in how they work together. Decisions get made fast. There's no second-guessing the direction.
This March, they're back. Art in Bloom 2026 runs March 18–22 at the NC Museum of Art in Raleigh. The theme this year is Written in the Stars — fourteen zodiac-inspired installations across the gallery. West Queen Studios interprets Pisces, with Anita again serving as head designer. The event is sold out.
If you're attending, it's worth finding.
Hidden Door Floral Studio delivers same-day across Raleigh, Cary, Durham, Chapel Hill, Morrisville, Apex, and Wake Forest. hiddendoorfloral.com
