Artemis II. The Mars-focused CHAPEA (Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog) missions. Two of the major space exploration projects going on at NASA in December of 2024 when Jordan at Big Time Creatives got me on the horn to ask if I would quote out florals for the Space Center Houston’s staff holiday party. The theme: “The Moon and Mars.”

“Sooo, they don’t really want centerpieces to look to “flowery,” Jordan laughed into the phone, acknowledging that “flowers but not too flowery” could be a fussy design brief. “What if we just skip right past flowers into more mixed media,” I asked, “do you think they would they be open to that?” And the enthusiastic response I got set me on a scrappy creative journey of returning to my roots as a 3D display artist at Anthropologie. When in doubt, ask your local florist if they truck in PLA printer filament and air-dry clay (don’t do that. They’ll be annoyed). Here’s the cover sheet of the pitch that got green-lit by the programs director at the space center:

We wanted to lean more into the poetic mythos of the moon, making visual nods to its effect on the biological community of earth, while highlighting more of the scientific, infrastructure-curious edge when it came to our imaginative portrayals of Mars.