Artplantae
In 2002, ArtPlantae was founded and became an herbarium and newsletter for artists by Tania Marien. Now it is serving artists, educators and naturalists who are wanting to pursue botanical art, environmental education, and botany with informal and formal learning environments. The main goal is to help encourage interests in plants through art, interpretation, and science.
It became an LLC and has managed books starting in 2003 until 2016. The bookstore was a curated collection of many resources that were related to plant-based education and art which is what helped to support the primary goal of using drawing as a way to learn and help to encourage an interest in plants. All of the supplies and books that were offered through the store were able to compliment the contents. They also managed a much smaller specialty shop that sold independent titles like exhibition catalogs of botanical art which was published by the American Society of Botanical Artists. However, the retail portion closed down in 2016 and now it helps and continues an educational blog to help those interested in botany.
Often times the topics that are covered and discussed are all plant-based education, the links between knowing and drawing plants, and botanical art are explored using the learning and teaching area. The whole purpose of this area is to connect artists, educators and naturalists so that they are able to learn from each other and then apply what they have learnt in their own programs and classrooms.
It also offers a lot of really cool information such as exploring unique areas through the designs of other artists.
Tania Marien was a full-time editor, bookseller and educator at the location for over 15 years and she helped to lead a lot of programs as well as introduced many people to botanical and plant illustration while at botanical gardens, private gardens, museums and educational events. Even though she has recently started working on some other interpretive projects, but she has continued to connect educators, artists and naturalists as being the part time editor for their blog. She has an Interdisciplinary Studies Master’s degree in Student Learning and Biology and a professional certificate for Free Choice Learning.
ArtPlantae is able to support many people in their journey and they can even help you to find classes that are near to your area. Here you can list all of your botanical art workshops, book art classes, sketchbook adventures and even botany classes for free. This allows people to get in touch with you and possibly help you to go much further in your journey than expected. They do ask that you provide as much information as possible such as media images, course webpages, information that is critical to the workshop and they will help to spread the information to as many people as possible in your area or those who may even be close to your area.
It is a great place for anyone who is wanting to expand their art knowledge especially when dealing with plants.