Welcome to Blumeshine

I’m Laura Blume—artist, designer, writer, editor. Thinker of thoughts. Maker of things. American. I spent a semester in London in 1991, then spent the next three decades dreaming of returning. So when my darling Mother (and fellow Anglophile) suddenly and unexpectedly died, I was left inconsolably lost and utterly unmoored. So I packed my life into storage, and set off on the trip to Norway we had been planning (thank you, Joanna Lumley). Inevitably, I found my way back to London, then on a spontaneous escape to the Cotswolds, where my heat jumped out of my chest and said STAY! So here I am, in Stow-on-the-Wold, opening an art gallery and working on my UK Visa.

Prior to this brand new life, I spent more than 30 years in corporate communications, restaurant ownership, magazine production, graphic design, advertising, marketing, and event planning. It was from one such event that the name “Blumeshine” was hatched, though based on the lively post-event conversation from whence it came, I should be making an illicit home-brewed beverage (thank you Hannah Stone).

Through it all, a lifelong love of the arts sustains my kintsugi-soul, and Britain sustains my hope. So join me as I plant myself in this new land, this new soil, this new life—to bloom and to shine.