Lewis Miller was born and raised in California farm country amid olive, almond, and peach orchards, and developed a respect for nature early on. At eighteen, he moved to Seattle where he studied horticulture and landscape design, and after seven years of successfully pursuing his interests in design, flowers, and event planning, Miller moved to New York, where he worked for one of the city's top floral boutiques. In March of 2002, Miller's vision of a country life in a metropolitan setting inspired him to create Lewis Miller Design. Since striking out on his own, Miller has created stunning floral designs for the Met, the Whitney, Tiffany, Ferragamo, Versace, Viktor & Rolf, and Bergdorf Goodman. In 2016, Miller invented the Flower Flash-a guerilla flower installation-and has created more than 90 since.
Lewis Miller, who has, under cover of night, turned the city's bedraggled mascots, the waist-high metal mesh garbage cans, into giant vases - is taking the most evanescent of the decorative arts into places it has rarely gone. Unlike graffiti, which is meant to leave its mark on mostly urban environments for as long as possible, these installations attempt not to defy but to chronicle nature's mutability. -T, The New York Times Style Magazine There is something magical about chancing upon a flash. Flowers spring up overnight out of waste bins or grow like beautiful weeds from old phone boxes - if the weeds were roses and anemones. -The Financial Times The Banksy of floral design. -The New Yorker If you live in New York City-or lurk on social media even a little bit-chances are you've come across the following strange and wondrous sight: A huge, colorful arrangement of fresh flowers placed at a seemingly random location. Perhaps a larger-than-life bouquet of forsythia and sunflowers bursting from an empty city trash can. Or a mammoth garland of roses draped around a statue in Central Park. These installations are so striking, they've likely caused you to stop in your tracks. They've also likely caused you to ponder the identity of the genius bandit behind these glorious acts. The genius bandit, it turns out, is Lewis Miller, a florist known for his fantastical wedding and party arrangements. . . He and his merry band of beautifiers have been stealthily creating what they call Flower Flashes. Their goal? Only to bring joy to their fellow citizens' daily commutes. -Vogue