As founder of the Minnesota School of Botanical Art, and an artist herself, Marilyn Garber has played a pivotal role in preserving and celebrating Minnesota’s native flora through the art of botanical illustration. Since opening the school in 2001, she has cultivated a community of artists dedicated to creating scientifically accurate and visually stunning representations of plants, combining deep observation with artistic skill.
Most recently, Marilyn and her students completed the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden and Bird Sanctuary Florilegium, a multi-year project capturing the native plants of Minnesota’s oldest public wildflower garden. This spring, the collection will be featured in an exhibition at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, with a larger show planned at the Bell Museum later in the year, highlighting the dedication and care that goes into each piece.
In this month’s Community Profile, Marilyn reflects on her journey as a botanical artist and teacher, sharing the inspirations, challenges, and joys that have shaped her career and the ways botanical art teaches us to see and appreciate the world around us.
Where does your story as an artist start, and what first drew you to botanical art?
My story really begins when I was very young. I grew up on a farm in Northwest Iowa, one of eight kids. My Aunt Mary lived far away in Washington, D.C. and when she visited, she would draw little portraits of us with crayons, and I was fascinated that she could make them actually look like us. She noticed my interest and encouraged it, sending me art catalogs and newspaper clippings from museums and exhibitions in D.C. Every few months I would receive envelopes full of art to study, and my job was to write back to her about what I thought. Between that and spending time in the library reading the Britannica Encyclopedia, I was slowly building an education in art, piecing it together from whatever resources I could find.
At the same time, I was growing up deeply connected to the land. Our farm was my playground, including a piece of original prairie that had never been plowed. My Uncle Henry helped me learn to notice the cycles of plants and seasons. Living on a farm teaches you to observe closely, and that early connection eventually led me back to plants and, ultimately, to botanical art.
When I was about thirteen or fourteen, my family made it to Washington, D.C., to visit my aunt, and I went to the National Gallery. Seeing works I had only known from books was a turning point. Being able to study every detail of Manet’s The Dead Toreador and DaVinci’s Mona Lisa in full color, I just knew then that I wanted to be an artist.
You founded the Minnesota School of Botanical Art in 2001. What was the original spark for starting the school?
The Minnesota School of Botanical Art began in 2001. Around that time, I was teaching botanical watercolor at the Como Conservatory and I was the Vice President of the American Society of Botanical Artists. There was a lot of interest in botanical art, but not much opportunity for serious training in this region, especially in the traditional style.
I had been tracking programs at places like the New York Botanical Garden and the Morton Arboretum and kept thinking, why don’t we have something like this in Minnesota? When the program at Como started to shift away from a clear definition of botanical art, I realized I needed to do something different.
So I approached the Bakken Museum about renting space and decided to run two classes, one in drawing and one in watercolor. I thought we might get eight or maybe sixteen students. Instead, seventy-eight people signed up. Suddenly, we weren’t just offering classes, we were a school. And that’s how the Minnesota School of Botanical Art began.
How do you approach creating a botanical painting, and what role does observing plants in nature play in your process?
Patience is essential. Many of the plants I work with only bloom for a very short period of time, sometimes just days, so observation often happens over multiple seasons. I’ll return to the same plant again and again to study it at different stages: bud, bloom, and seed.
Accuracy matters deeply in botanical art. These works are not just expressive. They are meant to be educational and scientifically accurate. That means slowing down, measuring, sketching, revising, and allowing the plant to lead the process rather than rushing toward a finished piece.
Everything starts in the field. Being outside with the plant, seeing how it grows, how light and weather affect it, is foundational. You can’t truly understand a plant from photographs alone. That observation then informs what I do in the studio; where careful rendering and discipline happen, always grounded in firsthand experience with the living subject.
Is there a plant, flower, or subject that you are particularly fond of?
I do not know that I could choose a single favorite, but I have a deep fondness for the Pasqueflower. It’s deeply connected to the farm where I grew up and to the prairie that is still there today. On the prairie, the flowers are very pale, a soft lavender, and they stay close to the ground. They’re delicate and quiet, not showy.
The prairie itself is now protected land, shared with neighboring farms and given over to the state, which feels very meaningful to me. I’ve painted the pasqueflower many times over the years, though I don’t actually own any of those paintings anymore. They’re all gone. But I keep thinking that maybe I need to go back to the farm, walk out onto the prairie, and paint it again.
The Minnesota School of Botanical Art is being featured in an exhibition this winter at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Can you give us an overview of this exhibition, and what do you hope visitors take away from it, especially those encountering botanical art for the first time?
Yes, I’m really thrilled for people to see this show. The Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden and Bird Sanctuary Florilegium will be on view at the Minneapolis Institute of Art until March 8th. This project started back in 2010 with artists from the Minnesota School of Botanical Art, and it’s been such a labor of love. We’ve been capturing Minnesota-native plants from the oldest public wildflower garden in the country. The artists really get to know their plants, visiting them year after year, watching them from seed to bloom, and as they change with the seasons. When you take your time as an artist, you are able to sit through so many little details and that’s what makes these pieces so special.
This run at the Institute will feature works from 32 of our artists, and later this spring, we’ll have an even larger show at the Bell Museum featuring all 43 artists! So there’s plenty more to explore for anyone who wants to dive deeper into Minnesota’s native flora.
I hope people come away noticing plants they know and maybe seeing them in a whole new way. Botanical art is all about looking closely, and even if you’ve never thought of yourself as a plant person, you might just fall in love with something familiar that you’ve overlooked. There’s a lot of beauty hiding in the details if you take the time to see it.
Images from January 10 gallery opening: Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board
Mentorship and artist education have been a big part of your career. What is some advice you tend to give your students?
I always tell them to be patient and focus on the foundations. Accuracy is central to botanical art, so I encourage students to slow down and really look. Things like highlight, half tone, shadow, core shadow, reflected light, and cast shadow are all important to get right. Paying attention to these details, and to the plant itself, is really the heart of both good botanical art and understanding the world around us.
Do you have a favorite season, either personally or artistically? And are those two the same?
I love spring for both personal and artistic reasons. There is a sense of anticipation and renewal, and so many plants are emerging or blooming for a brief moment. Artistically, spring is demanding because everything happens quickly, but that urgency makes the work feel alive. You have to be present.
Lastly, do you have a favorite Minneapolis park?
Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden holds a very special place in my heart. It is a refuge within the city and a place where you can slow down and reconnect with nature. Susan Wilkins has been the curator there for over a decade, and the team there has continued to do an incredible job at caring for this incredible space.
Spending so much time there through projects like the florilegium has deepened my appreciation not only for the garden itself, but also for the importance of protecting and caring for these public spaces for future generations.
Through her art and work, Marilyn Garber inspires us to slow down, pay attention to the small details, and see the beauty, patterns, and stories hidden all around us in the natural world.
You can catch the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden and Bird Sanctuary Florilegium at the Minneapolis Institute of Art now through March 8 and stay tuned for the larger show at the Bell Museum later this year!
Art Credit: Ronda Dick. Quaking Aspen, Populus tremuloides, 2021. Watercolor. EL2026.13.29
Image Credit: Angela Salisbury