Daily Archives: July 23, 2023


Through June 30 – Floraborealis

Berkshire Botanical Garden announces its featured summer art exhibition, Cynthia Wick’s “Floraborealis,” on display in the Leonhardt Art Galleries through August 27.

“Floraborealis” features joyous, incandescent paintings that emerged out of the dark Covid years of isolation, when the artist took refuge in her studio in Lenox, Massachusetts, going inward for inspiration and exploring her memories of color, light and beauty. 

Wick’s love of nature is undeniable as flowers, star-filled skies and bodies of water merge into distant, twinkling, city lights. Her materials are acrylic paint and painted paper collage. The artist also adds found objects like metallic cocktail umbrellas, glitter and Japanese paper she collects. These are deeply felt and personal works complex in their layering of vivid color. Wick works loosely and intuitively in the beginning of each picture, then slowly builds up the surface with multiple layers of paint and collage. “Floraborealis” is Wick’s second show at Berkshire Botanical Garden, following her 2019 exhibition, “The Shape of Color.”

Gallery hours for “Floraborealis” are seven days a week, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. 


Saturday, August 5 (all day) – NEBS Collecting Trip to Middlesex County, Connecticut (Vascular Plants)

  • Middlesex County is one of the most under-collected areas in Connecticut, so this day-long collection trip will be particularly valuable. The county is rich in habitat diversity: it has 110 named hills and mountains; two rivers (Mattabesset and Connecticut) with associated floodplain forests, marshes, and beaches; upland forests; successional farmlands; and coastal habitats including brackish and salt marshes, sandy beaches, woodlands, and grasslands. The county contains at least 16 of the Critical Habitat types recognized by the CT Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. Sites that we plan to visit include Wangunk Meadows WMA, Meshomasic State Forest, Cockaponset State Forest, and The Preserve State Forest. Some sites may include forays off-trail in somewhat wet or steep terrain.
  • Leaders: Lisa Standley, NEBS Curator of Vascular Plants; Sarah Taylor, Scientific Collections Manager, University of Connecticut, G.S. Torrey Herbarium; Elizabeth Kneiper, NEBS Curator of Cryptogams.
  • Register here so leaders may be in touch with you about this trip