After visiting Carpinteria during her time at UC Santa Barbara in the ‘80s, Victoria Bleeden, owner of Victoria Page Studio, became enchanted. She knew she would eventually return to the tiny beach town.
“I swore that one day I would come back,” Bleeden told Coastal View News. “I loved the community.”
Bleeden’s dream would come true during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, when she packed up her life and her flower art business and settled in Carpinteria. In 2023, she moved to her current home at Rose Story Farm, where she lives out of a small cottage surrounded by acres of roses and avocado orchards.
Before moving to Carpinteria, Bleeden had spent nearly 30 years as a competitive equestrian while also raising two twin boys. She contracted a brain tumor in 2015 and gave up competitive horse riding, but later created her equine-assisted coaching business, The Empowered Herd, which she said helped “women heal through horses.”
The pandemic brought a wave of change for Bleeden: The Empowered Herd was forced to close, and shortly after, she launched her small business, Victoria Page Studio, which incorporates pressed flowers into mixed-medium art pieces, on Etsy. She’s since expanded her mediums; her pieces now incorporate flowers, handmade paper, and locally sourced beach shells, driftwood and sea glass.
Bleeden said she was inspired by her childhood of collecting and drying flowers.
“I spent many weekends during college, exploring the Los Padres Forest, where I began collecting and pressing wildflowers,” she said. “Forty years later, I resumed this hobby and began incorporating my finds into my art.”
She closed her Etsy business after settling in Carpinteria, and began selling her works at local stores, such as Seaside Makers in Santa Barbara and Carpinteria, and Tidepools on Linden Ave. Bleeden was hired as an executive assistant and designer at Dirt Botanicals in 2024, and she now sells her art out of the floral shop on Santa Claus Lane.
“From flower child to flower artist and floral designer who lives on a flower farm, my life is truly blessed,” Bleeden said.