"I have been in love with the botanical world since I was a young child. Laying sick in bed, I would watch my mother and sister weave dandelion and pansy stems through the window screen of my bedroom window. Looking out I would watch my grandfather lovingly tend his extensive rose gardens. Since then, wherever I lived I have created gardens filled with flowers and herbs, containers and ponds, but also welcomed creatures; winged, footed, and gilled to enjoy what I do. It didn't matter where, from squeezing them onto north facing windows in Greenwich Village, to more spacious gardens at homes in Fairfield, Greenwich and Milford.
After I retired as a Greenwich middle school teacher, I realized I would not be traveling as I had done in my younger years, so I decided to travel to the complex and beautiful world of the garden. I began my studies of botanical illustration at the New York Botanical Gardens under the tutelage of Lauretta Jones and Kathie Miranda. They guided and encouraged me and I began to realize that my love of gardening would be joined by a new love; that of botanical illustration. The intensity of the drawing experience and love of detail completely posses me. I am, perhaps, less enthralled with the "race against death" which is the botanical artist's challenge, especially when working with live flowers. The more I work and learn, the more I am aware that a new passion had been born to join a long standing one." --Sharon Poole
We all are not blessed with the green thumb. "Green Thumb" is a description that is used for gardeners and horitculturists because of their ability to nurture, care and create a beautiful palette of natures paints. Each flower having its own color from the color spectrum. Sharon is one whose green thumb has created masterpieces using nature's beauty whether it is the garden at the corner park where she lives, her own back yard, or her drawing pad. She takes ever so delicate care of the earth where her "children" live. Making sure the soil is healthy with the nutrients it needs, saving it from the salt of the sound after flooding. It seems so effortless for her as she carefully places the seed and bulbs for each new bloom to take root in Earth. Watering, feeding, weeding, watching - checking to make sure that each seed, each bulb begins to grow. A sprout appears one day, and before two days time, a blossom appears! The reward for being thoughtful and caring to bring life back into the earth is seeing their gracious beauty and breathing in the scents each flower joyously emits, thanking her for tending to them - creating a new life!
Sharon's green thumb has been fused into each color pencil she holds as she draws with meticulous care the delicate petals of each blossom bringing it life. As the flowers, botancials grow, Sharon captures their growth spurts with each stroke of the pencil bringing to life on paper what we admire as we visit the gardens. The pencils blending, merging, creating, replicating nature's paints of each specimen giving to us Earth's masterpieces. Just so we may forever have them holding onto to the moment when "we stopped to smell the flowers."
You can smell the scent of each, you can feel the rigidness in each pumpkin stem, you can feel the skin of the pumpkin squash, the prick of the holly leaf; don't touch! You might bruise the petals, turning them brown!
You can visit Sharon's Garden at SoBoBo during the month of May. Her botanicals will be on display from May 1st to May 31st. An opening reception will take place on Thursday, May 17th from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm. Please join us in the Garden at SoBoBo, 42 Naugatuck Avenue, Milford, CT. Gallery hours are Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from Noon to 6:00 pm.
