Boston Flora

Tag: botanical prints

  • Saturday, August 21, 10:00 am – 1:00 pm – Eco Printing: Botanical Prints on Paper

    Use leaves and flowers collected at Mass Hort to print images directly on paper using a process called eco printing. In this August 21 class at The Gardens at Elm Bank, you will experiment with two forms of eco printing. First, you will learn how to treat paper with a mordant that helps the plant pigments bind to paper. You will arrange plants on your mordanted papers and steam them to capture nature’s beauty. While your first batch of prints is steaming, you will make a second bundle of plants and paper that you will boil with rusty objects. The iron from the rusty objects will bind the plant pigments to the paper. You will leave with lots of prints that can be used for cards, framed pictures, or collages.Mary DeLano is a fiber explorer who loves eco printing, natural dying, stitching, wool applique, and rug making. Mary enjoys sharing her passion for fiber arts with new students.  She teaches throughout New England, including at Maine Fiber College, where she also serves on the organizing committee.  Click here for a class example. This class  registration will close down a week prior for supplies to be prepared. $75 for Mass Hort members, $98 for nonmembers. Register HERE.

  • Thursday, January 14, 1:00 pm – Botanical Print Collection of the Boston Athenaeum

    Stanley Cushing, curator of rare books and manuscripts at the Boston Athenaeum, will welcome a small group from the Garden Club of the Back Bay on Thursday, January 14 in the Vershbow Special Collections Reading Room for a viewing of botanical images in the rare books collection. This special opportunity will be preceded by a docent-led tour of the building, beginning at 1 pm. If you are a member and plan to attend, please email info@bostonflora.com no later than Friday, January 8. Due to space limitations, the number of attendees is limited to 12, so responses will be accepted on a first come, first serve basis. Please indicate if you would like to be on a waitlist, should a vacancy occur. You will be contacted with a confirmation upon receipt of your rsvp. We are sorry but nonmember guests cannot be invited to this event. We will meet at the Athenaeum at 1 pm. There is no cost for this meeting.

  • Massachusetts Horticultural Society Print Collection

    Thanks to three months of collaboration between the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, the Boston Public Library, and Digital Commonwealth, more than 1,000 rare images from the oldest horticultural library in the nation are now available at the click of a button.

    With prints dating from 1620 to 1969, Mass Hort’s Botanical Print Collection captures more than three centuries in the evolution of botanical illustration, offering an invaluable resource for students, researchers, and authors in the field of horticultural. The digital portal will also create opportunities for the public to explore images that until now have been seen only by experts and aficionados, and to cultivate an appreciation for the art and science of horticulture from the comfort of their own homes.

    The Horticultural Library at Massachusetts Horticultural Society was the first in the United States. It was established soon after the Society was founded in 1829 to share horticulture knowledge and beauty through its prints, books, extensive collection of seed catalogs, and other rare materials. Its horticultural holdings provide invaluable resources to our members, scholars, historians and general public.

    Noticing that interest in botanical prints had grown during the intervening 140 years, the Society mounted its first major exhibit in 1968. It continued in 1969, when a group of lily prints was shown to the North American Lily Society at its annual meeting.

    Digitization and online access to special collections is an important strategy for any cultural heritage organization as it allows us to reach our users beyond our buildings and business hours. Today, with the help of Digital Commonwealth, Mass Hort’s Library will meet the 21st Century digital needs of students, researchers, authors and the public.

    Massachusetts Horticultural Society’s botanical prints are available online at the Digital Commonwealth repository at https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/collections/commonwealth:k930hm897. These images are available for the purposes of viewing and studying and not for commercial use.

    Massachusetts Horticultural Society’s Library collection includes over 20,000 volumes at our library in the Education Center of our Elm Bank horticulture center and gardens. Additionally, at a separate archival storage facility, the Society maintains 5,000 rare books, manuscripts, prints, seed catalogs, glass slides, and early transactions of horticultural institutions.

    Many of the books transferred to the Chicago Botanical Garden’s Lenhardt Library Rare Book Collection in the early 2000’s by Mass Hort are now available online through the Illinois Digital Archives at http://www.idaillinois.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/ncbglib01; search on “Massachusetts Horticultural Society.”

    Digital Commonwealth is a non-profit collaborative organization that provides resources and services to support the creation, management, and dissemination of cultural heritage materials held by Massachusetts libraries, museums, historical societies, and archives. Digital Commonwealth currently has over 130 member institutions from across the state.