Worldwide Day of Botanical Art

Yesterday I wrote a bit about botanical art and shared a few resources. At the close of the post, I mentioned an upcoming special event — the “Worldwide Day of Botanical Art”. This is an annual even that happens on May 18.

Here is a bit of information from the Botanical Art Worldwide website:

“The first Botanical Art Worldwide project, launched in 2018, presented a groundbreaking collaboration between botanical artists, organizations, and institutions worldwide, creating and exhibiting botanical artworks of native plants found in each of 25 participating countries.”

Now, in 2025, botanical artists from all across the globe will be sharing their work to raise awareness of the importance of bio-diversity in crops. The theme for 2025 centers on “the vast variety of food and useful plants available, in contrast with the relatively few varieties currently used in mass cultivation.” This includes plants cultivated for food, as well as those used in textiles, building, energy, and medicine. This includes drawing attention to “heritage crops”, wild “relatives” of crops, and ancient crops that have been cultivated for thousands of years.

A juried exhibition of artwork will be on display at the Foundry Centre, located here in Missouri, near St. Louis. This exhibition opened last month and will run through May 24. It is titled “A More Abundant Future: Cultivating Diversity in Garden, Farm, and Field”, You can learn more about the exhibition and the Worldwide Day of Botanical Art by visiting here. This link will lead you to a “Home Page” from which you can read about various artists who are participating, see art that is on display, purchase an exhibition catalog, and read more about events taking place.

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As I stated clearly yesterday, I am NOT a botanical artist, yet this special event is of interest to me. I am an inhabitant of planet earth. My body requires food. I live in a world in which bio-fuels and hybridization of crops are important issues. What I’m saying is that the “Worldwide Day of Botanical Art” isn’t merely about art. It’s about life. It’s about science. It’s about our connections to the earth.

Although I won’t be traveling to St. Charles, Missouri, to view the exhibition, I will be celebrating the day in my own small way. I’ll probably begin my looking at the botanical art on display — viewing it online — and then I’ll venture out into my own backyard. We’re not raising any crops this year. Not even any tomatoes or blackberries. But I will turn my attention to the grass growing beneath my feet. I’ll marvel again at the myriad shapes of the leaves on our trees and bushes. I’ll poke around our little wildflower patch to see what might be springing up this year.

Yes, I’ll have my sketchbook with me. I’ll enjoy a little bit of pretense, imaginging how it would feel to be a botanical artist, to have the finely-honed observational skills required to accurate draw scientifically correct plants. I’ll take a little more time than usual to look at the plants around me, to study all the shapes and colors.

It’s not just about art. It’s about awareness. And that’s something each of us can experience.