Elisabeth Nickles

Elisabeth will create a traditional flower and herb garden with teenage girls from the Mastery Charter Garden Club while teaching the folklore traditions and medicinal properties of certain plants. The students in the club will keep journals of drawings, creative writing, and scientific notes. They will learn the history of women in gardening, botany, and science, integrated with the observational and patience-building skills of drawing and tending to young plants. The teens will document this process with drawing. As they work during the summer, Elisabeth will bring in different materials to work with such as clay and wood, and introduce the students to these different materials and methods to make sculpture and objects for their garden. The project will culminate with the group designing and painting a large diagrammatic botanical mural at the garden.