About Us

When I launched this website over eight years ago, I had no idea where it would end up, or if it would even last. The obstacles were certainly stacked against me. I had very little capital, and I was starting this new venture relatively alone.

I know most of my friends and family considered it another one of my crazy ideas. They assumed I would eventually get bored or lose interest, and that, just like everything else, it would soon fade away.

The idea of having a store of my own really goes back to when I was a child. The first spark came in the 5th or 6th grade. It was the final days of the school year, and I couldn’t wait for summer break to start. The lessons were all but over, and our days were spent cleaning out our desks, sanding the side pages of our textbooks, and getting the classroom ready for next year’s students.

To finish the day, our teacher would pop a tape into the VCR to fill the last few hours. In one scene, a kid named Bastian is running from his bullies, and in his rush to get away he ducks into an old bookstore. In that moment, in an instant, he was in another world, and I was in awe. I watched that movie, along with The Karate Kid, for the rest of the summer.

The other moment comes from the time I spent with my mother in our garden. I think I was the only teenager who enjoyed getting up at 7am to start cutting the lawn. There was something about the calm of those summer mornings and the mist from the marine layer. “June gloom,” as we call it in Southern California, was my idea of the day sleeping in, a lazy morning, a slow start to what I knew would end up being another day of sun.

As the morning went on, the energy picked up, and by midday everyone was up and out and a lot was happening around the house. The dogs were running around, barking and trying to chase the lawn mower, my mom was pulling weeds in the garden, my dad was in the garage, and my siblings were playing music on the stereo or watching MTV. The best part of it all was sitting outside with the scent of fresh-cut grass in the air while my parents enjoyed a nice cold beer.

The rest of the weekend went by quickly. Sundays were spent at the swap meet, hunting for more terra-cotta pots or plants for the garden, maybe stopping by a thrift or antiques store if we had the time and energy. To escape the heat of the day, I usually spent Sunday afternoons washing the cars. Not that I loved it, but it meant I got to take each car out to fill up the tank for the week. It was my little escape. And as the weekend came to an end, I remember driving to the gas station and looking up at the sky, mesmerized by a hue of sunset orange that can only be found during those California summers.

That bookstore, that garden and that sunset have stayed with me. For eight years this shop went by Onederkam, a nod to the Wunderkammer, the old “cabinet of curiosities,” a room filled with rare and wondrous things. That idea hasn’t changed. It has simply grown up.

Bloom & Finial is the next chapter. The bloom is the garden: my mother’s flower beds, the terra-cotta pots from the swap meet, the scent of fresh-cut grass on a June morning. The finial is the finishing touch, the small ornament that crowns a lamp, a gate post or a cabinet, and the one curious object that makes a room feel like your own. Together they’re what I have always gone looking for: things that grow, and things that stay with you.

You’ll still find the same mix here: sculptural pots and vases, ceramic flowers, candles, books and curiosities for the home and garden, chosen one piece at a time.

It’s these 50 years of memories and moments that have led to this place, and it’s with the most humble and sincere gratitude that I welcome you to Bloom & Finial.

— Fabian, Founder
Claremont, California