Who We Are
Origins
Starting the project in early 2014, we began renovating our storefront. Putting in floors, fresh track lighting, painting the walls, and then building the shop counter - we slowly renovated and built the space out specific to our needs. It seems we always find something that we can change and make better, and it just goes on a list and eventually gets rethought. Bloom is nestled into an old coal mining town called Thomas, WV. Our town was built in the early 1900's predominantly by European immigrants, and so it has brick wall bones paired with the facades of traditional Italian building. We have several creative businesses on our street as well as other known and established points of interest near by, including national forest and state parks.
We started with a really minimal selection of artists and makers and slowly added more. We found ourselves starting to host exhibitions in 2015 and enjoyed it. Now we host six per year and have over twenty-five regularly contributing artists.
Artist Residency Program
Our program that aims to assist artists in becoming full-time with their creative work. Over the years of running this business we have seen what works and what doesn't, and it's with great pleasure that we can relay this back over the course of a six month residency. We provide housing for the artist and they work closely with all of the behind the scenes work that goes into maintaining Bloom. Furthermore, they have plenty of time to focus on creating bodies of creative work.