By Nicole Breskin
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
EAST VILLAGE — Before Bella Meyer even begins to compose one of her lavish floral arrangements, she starts with a sketch — a trick she inherited from her late grandfather, French painter Marc Chagall.
“I paint the scene and write down all the color progressions,” she says, gesturing brush strokes with her hands. “It allows me to bathe in the atmosphere.”
Meyer, 54, recently opened Fleurs Bella, a boutique floral designer on East 11th Street. She always had an eye for beauty and art, but she didn’t realize her calling in the business until recently.
Meyer grew up immersed in art through her family. Her grandfather Chagall was called by his peer Pablo Picasso as “the only painter who really understands what color is” after French artist Henri Matisse passed away.
She received her PhD in Medieval Art History at the Sorbonne in Paris, and moved to Manhattan after an initial visit in 1979, she says, because of the cultural vibe of the city.
At first, Meyer taught courses in visual arts at the French Embassy and worked as a freelance costume and prop designer. But after a few trips to the Flower District, Meyer pondered creating art with flowers.
“Flowers really attracted me in their colors and textures,” she recalls.
In the late 1990s, she created her first masterpiece — a floral wedding canopy, called a chuppah, for a Jewish friend’s wedding. From there, she started dabbling in floral arrangements and gained clients.
Five years ago, Meyer was spotted in several neighborhoods scattering flowers across Manhattan's most unlikely spots, like construction sites, on a mission to beautify the borough one petal at a time.
Fleurs Bella is Meyer’s first boutique. She believes if her grandfather saw her store he would be impressed.
“He would say it’s too big,” she joked. “But he would also say it’s very beautiful and he’d never be able to paint it quite as beautiful as it is.”
