A BOTANICAL ILLUSTRATOR'S CHRISTMAS LETTER With Guest, SANDY ROSS SYKES
Smitten By Faith Issue # 00021 Christmas Day, 25th December 2021
It’s CHRISTMAS DAY TODAY ! Emmanuel - GOD IS WITH US.
I would like to wish all my readers, especially Christians, a very blessed and happy day as we celebrate the miracle, magic, beauty and mystery of the Nativity. And, to write our Christmas Letter for this joyous day I invited my friend Sandy Ross Sykes whose work and spirituality is indeed a paean of joy to the beauty of the earth - God’s creations.
The Latin word, ‘florilegium’ means ‘a gathering of flowers’ although today, ‘florilegia’ is used to also refer to huge encyclopaedic excerpts from famous writers and scholars which illustrate certain topics or themes. Modern florilegia seek to record collections of plants - often now endangered - from within a particular place. This is exactly what the well-known artist SANDY ROSS SYKES does as a Botanical Illustrator. Sandy meticulously records through her illustrations some of the most endangered plant species. It takes so much fine detailed work and time to produce a single botanical painting that artists like Sandy are, although not quite as endangered as some of the plant species she records, almost as rare !
Sandy against the backdrop of her drawings of one of her ginger flowers
Sandy says , “ My role as a botanical artist has changed rapidly with the realisation that we can no longer depend on natural resources being preserved. It is not uncommon to return to a region and find that it has been levelled or dammed and the indigenous tribes displaced. I hope that by painting the ginger species I find, and recording their local uses there may be some trace left of the fragile ties that bind us to nature.”
As a young art student, Sandy trained in London to be a Fine Artist and Sculptor. However, after graduation and marriage, she found herself living and painting in the Far East. She became fascinated with the exotic plants and animals she saw while traveling in S.E. Asia. Later when Sandy took her Master’s degree at the Royal College of Art in London, her interest moved towards natural history illustration and it was there that she specialised in painting one species that at that time, she says she knew very little: the Ginger or Zingiberaceae family of which there are over 1500 species !
And so, between 2004 to 2015 Sandy painted species of Zingiberaceae ( ginger flowers ) in all their natural habitats – mainly in the rain forests of S.E Asia . Her purpose was conservation and recording the species for posterity. Today, she notes sadly that many of the places where she went to paint the gingers have disappeared. She says that when she first started painting, she did not know how soon it would be that the species and large areas of the rainforest would be lost and that she would be recording species that future generations may be unlikely to know. To explore some of Sandy’s paintings, please visit : www.sandyrosssykes.com
Different perspectives of Zingiberaceae ( ginger flowers ) meticulously drawn by Sandy
Sandy has exhibited her extensive body of work at many exhibitions world-wide too many to name. Some of these include the Royal College of Art London, Singapore Botanic Gardens , Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, the British Museum, the British Council, Hong Kong, the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation Exposition, USA and the Society of Botanical Painters.
Sandy also teaches special botanical drawing classes at the Linnean Society, Royal Botanic Gardens and the Royal College of Art. Sandy says that “ by teaching I could really give others something that can give them happiness and great confidence.” Visit her teaching website : www.drawnfromnature.co.uk . Sandy’s unique and rare paintings are held by many museums including the Natural History Museum, London; The Hunt Institute, Pittsburg, USA; Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and the Singapore Botanic Gardens.
So today on Christmas Day, we are very privileged that Sandy a Catholic is sharing with us not just some of her amazing botanical drawings but also her thoughtful Christmas Reflections in her beautiful Christmas Letter. So, over now to Sandy for our double treat – letter and drawings which have been personally chosen by Sandy to demonstrate the joyful Christmas spirit .
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A CHRISTMAS LETTER FROM A BOTANICAL ILLUSTRATOR
Sandy Ross Sykes
Wiltshire, England, UK Christmas Day, 25th December 2021
Greetings.
As I write this I hear an owl calling from the forest on the edge of which I now live in Wiltshire, England. The simple house sits in a narrow wooded Valley or Coombe to give it the Old English name. There are only six other houses which are of great age nestled along this Valley. Local lore has it that a cold winter is coming as the branches of wild Holly bushes are heavily glistening with red berries. It was serendipity that brought me here this last summer after a year of renting outside London due to Covid. The very first thing we did was to fix up a space in which I had enough light to paint. It is from here that I will finish my conservation based project on the Zingiberaceae flowers of South East Asia from very different forests on the other side of the world.
The forest where I now find myself adjoins the many lands of old Wardour Castle which remained a Catholic stronghold throughout Tudor times. In the spring of 1643 Lady Blanche Arundell held the castle against an army of Parliamentarians who later executed Charles I, King of England. During this turbulent chapter in history many priests went into hiding as they had done during Tudor times. The castle fell into the picturesque ruins that many now visit, while across the valley a new Wardour castle was built by her descendants in 1770. It has a beautiful chapel which is still in use today and open to all.
Writing this piece for you today has made me reflect on spiritual belief and creativity and the influence of one upon the other. As a girl at The Teresian School, Dublin, Ireland, I was taught that we all have a vocation in life, a choice as to our approach to living out our lives So it's not just the rich hue of the red holly berries but the deep layers of history I find so inspiring in my new studio and l hope to work on my paintings for many years to come.
Joy and peace to you all, wherever and however you find yourself on this Christmas Day in 2021.
Sandy Ross Sykes
Wiltshire, England
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Editor’s Note :
Dear Reader, thank you for reading this weekly edition of SMITTEN BY FAITH.
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