Learn to speak the Victorian language of flowers in this hands-on workshop with horticulturist and author Marta McDowell.
In the Victorian era, when polite conversation was constrained by a strict moral code, flowers offered a way to reveal the secrets of the heart without speaking a word. Through images and floral examples, Marta McDowell will discuss the flora found in Julia Margaret Cameron’s photographs. Participants will create their own coded message in a pressed flower work of art. All materials are included.
Marta McDowell teaches landscape history and horticulture at the New York Botanical Garden and is a popular lecturer and writer. She is the author of Unearthing The Secret Garden, Emily Dickinson’s Gardening Life, The World of Laura Ingalls Wilder, New York Times-bestselling All the Presidents’ Gardens, Beatrix Potter’s Gardening Life, and Gardening Can Be Murder. She was the 2019 recipient of the Garden Club of America’s Sarah Chapman Francis Medal for outstanding literary achievement.
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Julia Margaret Cameron, Maud, ca. 1867–74, albumen print © The Royal Photographic Society Collection at the V&A, acquired with the generous assistance of the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Art Fund. Museum no.RPS.1094–2017.