Mayesh Design Star Featured Designer: Gilberto Espinoza

Happy March! After a fabulous start to our 2021 Mayesh Design Star series with Drew Rios leading the charge, we are beyond excited to introduce our next Mayesh Design Star for the months of March & April.

For a quick reminder on this year's format, check out this blog first...

And without further ado, we give you...

If you've been tuning into our Beautiful People series with Val McNichols, you were probably introduced to Gilberto last year during his interview. Gilberto is the Creative Direct at Dogwood & Fir in San Diego, CA, which was born during the pandemic. He has a truly beautiful soul and energy, and radiates happiness and positivity. He is also a fantastic designer, with an amazing talent for tablescapes and telling a story in his designs.

You'll get to know more about Gilberto over the next two months, but let's hear a little bit about Gilberto from the designer himself:

My journey in the Floral art started 4 years ago and this is my story. I was born and raised in Mexico and one day I decided to spend some time in Montreal, Canada to learn the French language. After spending some time there and getting my certification in the language my family decided to move to San Diego from Mexico, so I wanted to join them in this new adventure. At the beginning it was very challenging because it was a new city and I didn’t know people, I didn’t know how to start from zero, but luckily I have my family to support each other. We needed to to look for sources of income so we started to sell returned items from Walmart, Target, Amazon at the swap meet. It was not an easy job, I remember once in a winter day a huge storm arrive and we got all wet, we were trying to protect all our merchandise from not getting wet. Finally when the rain stopped all the clients arrived and we sold out! I remember that day very well because I learned about patience, perseverance, team work and the most important thing family union.

I was not a fan of selling at the swap meet to be honest, so I started looking for new horizons and I found my passion for floral design. I looked for schools and workshop to learn the crafts and become a professional, I knew that here in San Diego exists the adult school where they teach job training programs and suddenly I found floral design so I enrolled right away! While I was studying floral design I got the opportunity to assist at the floral show in the San Diego County Fair, and thanks to that I got my first part time job in a flower shop. I used to divide my time between 3 part time jobs and freelancing for other florist as well and finally I graduated from floral design class and received my certification in Floral Design.

I met my husband and when we were dating COVID 19 arrived, I lost some of my jobs because the pandemic. One night when we were having dinner he encouraged me to start my own company because he trusted my vision and passion and next day both of us started the planning, the logistics and all the needs for a new company, 2 months later we gave birth to Dogwood and Fir. To me all the previous situations were a huge step in my life because I learned not just about floral design, I learned how to be responsible, I learned about work ethics, perseverance and if you really love something in life never give up. Starting a new company in uncertain times is never easy, but thanks to all the changes in my life I’m not afraid of changes, I’m not scared of starting again because life is about renovation and change, is adaptation and looking for new ways to improve.

Dogwood & Fir Portfolio