Beauty in a New Terroir

Botanical Artist, Volume 30, Issue 4

December, 2024

Submitted by Sylvie Vanhoozer

A transplant originally from Provence, France, my search for roots eventually led me to the Chicago Botanic Gardens, and a 2016 certificate in botanical art. It was by observing and painting native plants that I learned to find beauty in the distinct terroir where I found myself resettled: the Midwest.

I chronicle these lessons in my book The Art of Living in Season. It includes my own botanical color artwork, and features contemplations on wild, ornamental, and kitchen gardens throughout the seasons, focusing on what grows out of our local terroirs―the magical combination of soil, climate, and geography.

The book weaves observations and illustrations of the seasons of nature with reflections on the seasons of life, and the seasons of the church year, starting in December with Advent when, in the northern hemisphere, the church calendar is remarkably in tune with the natural seasons.

The thread that holds everything together is the Provençal nativity story, with its clay figurines, les santons (“little saints”), who bring gifts to the Christ child from their terroir: everything from grapes and lavender to olives and garlic. It’s a miniature parable of how “people, plants, and planet” intersect in ethnobotanical relationships in every local place.

Book by Sylvie Vanhoozer sold by IVPress