Artist Bonnie Gale, Friday – Sunday, June 21 – 23
Bonnie Gale, a New York-based artist and landscape designer who has used willow as her primary medium since the early 1980s, returns to lead programs a year after constructing her site-specific Living Willow Dreams – a seven-foot-tall, domed, willow structure – in the Museum’s Sculpture Garden. An accomplished willow basketry artist, Bonnie’s residency programs weave together the themes of this summer’s botanical art exhibitions – Botanical Art Worldwide: America’s Flora and Flora, Fauna, Font: Illustrating the Alphabet. Program registration opens Saturday, June 1; to register for residency workshops please call the Museum at 715-845-7010.

Spotlighting the ephemeral beauty and variety of plant life, two botanical art exhibitions open at the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum on Saturday, June 8. “Botanical Art Worldwide: America’s Flora” highlights U.S. indigenous plants – from cacti and trees to woodland flowers – with a goal to increase appreciation and understanding of the world’s plant diversity and its interconnectedness. An array of North American flora, both familiar and rare, is meticulously depicted in watercolor and other mediums. “Flora, Fauna, Font: Illustrating the Alphabet,” features Kandis Vermeer Phillips’ illuminated alphabet adorned with plants, mammals, and insects.