Happy Walpurgis Night! 2009 Summer - Fall catalog is out!

Close to 50 course offerings can be found in the new catalog, there will be something for everybody. Registration starts on June 1st, 9 a.m. You can print and download the catalog here (username: biprogram, password: student), you can also find a link on the right hand column.

Read more about the carnival-style festivity that we are missing here in Colorado on April 30th, link

Julie Sprinkle - Eclogues

(Please click the image to enlarge)

Taste of Spring

(©Natalya Zuber; please click the image to enlarge)

Natalya Zuber’s graphite piece Taste of Spring clearly illustrates how you can, in the BI-Program learn techniques applicable not only for Botanical Illustration. Natalya has been in the program since 2007.
See our class listing for the period of July-December 2009 on the right column under ‘Of Note', or by clicking here, link (to download use the username: biprogram, password: student). Registration for the new classes starts on June 1st, 9a.m. Final class descriptions are out shortly.

Nelly Roberts – 56 years as a RHS orchid artist

(x Rhyncholaeliocattleya Ambersolis, FCC/RHS, 19 October 1926 by Nelly Roberts)

At the age of 24, Nelly Roberts (1872-1959) was hired for probationary period of six months to paint orchids for the Royal Horticultural Society.

When she retired from the same position in 1953 (!) she had produced between 4500 and 5000 orchid paintings, got several awards and two orchids named for her. Read more about this remarkable woman here (The Orchid Review, vol 117, No 1285:32-38)

(to download the article – username: biprogram, password: student)

Margaret Flockton Award 2009

Winners for Margaret Flocton Award 2009 are now officially announced and published. Congratulations!

(Asparagus elephantinus by Sandra Burrows)

First Price of $5000: Sandra Burrows, South Africa
Second Price of $2000: Klei Rodrigo Sousa, Brazil

(Orthophytum heleniceae by Klei Rodrigo Sousa)

(Please, click the images to enlarge)

HOORAY FOR PEN AND INK!

Joseph Raffael in the Arvada Center

The Arvada Center (driving directions here) is partnering with Fort Collins Museum of Contemporary Art in bringing Joseph Raffael to Colorado. Raffael is one of America’s foremost contemporary realist painters, also featured in the May issue of The Artist’s Magazine (The Creative Instant, Interview by Sarah A Strickley, pp:28-35).
The Opening Reception was on April 17th, the exhibit will go through May 31. After that it travels to Fort Collins. See the photo stream of the Arvada exhibit here.

The Shine of Silver

This weekend Karen Ackoff is visiting Denver Botanic Gardens and teaching the techniques of silverpoint and egg tempura for an enthusiastic group of BI students. Here are some silverpoint examples from today’s session:

(by Heidi Snyder)

(by Dorothy DePaolo)

An Artist Making Her Mark - SusieHyer

(Golden Willow Gold by SusieHyer)

Susie Hyer, who graduated from the Botanical Art and Illustration Program for some years ago, is one of the three featured artists in the article Today's Masters: Three Artists Making Their Mark appearing in the Fine Art Connoisseur Magazine's March/April issue. To read the article, please click here.

Cultural Collapse in Cafe Botanique, April 16th

Climate Change and Cultural Collapse:
The Rise and Fall of the Mississippian Cahokians and the Southwestern Anasazi
Larry Benson, Ph.D., USGS

Between about 1000 A.D. and 1150 A.D., prehistoric Native American cultures in the Midwest and Southwest experienced near-simultaneous political and economic transformation. Great house construction accelerated throughout the San Juan Basin of the Southwest and many earthen mounds were constructed in the Cahokia area of Illinois/Missouri during this time interval. By 1150 both cultures were in decline and by 1300, both the San Juan Basin and the Cahokia areas had been abandoned. Archeologists have long wondered what, if anything caused these distant cultures to rise and fall in a nearly-simultaneous manner. Recent studies, which employ tree-ring-based reconstructions of climate change, indicate that cultural expansion in both areas occurred during an anomalously wet period and that cultural collapse occurred during mega-drought.

Larry Benson joined the USGS in 1982 and is presently Chief of the Arid Regions Climate Project. Prior to USGS he was a professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Desert Research Institute in Reno, Nevada. He has also been a visiting scientist at the University of California-Berkeley, as well as a principal investigator at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Thursday, April 16, 2009
Denver Botanic Gardens – Morrison Center
6:30 – 8 p.m.

Bev Coogan in Simply Divine Boutique

(Origanum libanoticum by Bev Coogan)

Former BI graduate (2005), Bev Coogan is the featured Artist of The Month at Simply Divine, Denver.
The opening reception with refreshments is on Friday, April 3rd 5 p.m. -
(Address: 4347 Tennyson Street, Denver, CO 80212; 720-855-8105)