Ms. Blossom’s seventeen years’ experience in early-stage technology firms, international business, nonprofit and social ventures led her to founding Lulan Artisans. After earning her master’s degree in Architecture from Tulane University, she practiced at Gensler in Los Angeles. She then spent two years in Viet Nam restoring French villas for such clients as Price Waterhouse and Chase Manhattan, and training Vietnamese architects in technology. After returning to the US, Blossom was a VP of business development with Gravity, Inc, a software company in San Francisco, and then founded the San Francisco-based Envolved Inc./Foundation, an Internet portal for nonprofit groups. She moved to Charleston in 2001 and ran the fundraising office of the American College of the Building Arts. But it was during her time in the Viet Nam phase of her career that she found the roots of her calling. Traveling throughout Southeast Asia, she became passionate about local hand-woven textiles utilizing natural dyes. She recognized that the superb talents of the master weavers combined with a social venture model could create a strong economic engine to fuel social change for these individuals, their families and communities. Lulan merges all of Blossom’s skills: design, product development, production, management, and strategic planning, accompanied by her commitment to social, economic, cultural and environmental sustainability. Drawn to weaving, she sees it as an architectural art form, the warp and weft creating a structure that has functional and aesthetic applications. Lulan is intended to give a louder voice, and a wider audience to the talented artisans who deserve it. Lulan plans to launch a website with a direct consumer area with ecommerce at the end of March.
Bio from the period BIL record (source).